If one thing this break reminded us about the sports world, it’s that you should never get comfortable on top.

The football field, the basketball court, the hockey rink and the baseball diamond are places free of mathematics and science. Athletes are unchained by probabilities and odds. Anything can happen, and sometimes it does.

Sports aren’t governed by rules; sports are governed by the sports gods themselves. The gods like heavy competition and hate monopolies. Ever noticed that no matter what the deficit at the half, the trailing team will always make a second half comeback? That’s the gods. They’re everywhere.

This year’s Rose Bowl was hyped as a clash of the titans, a match up for the ages. In the days leading up to the game, ESPN ran a special poll that pitted this year’s USC team against great teams from decades past. USC was ready to go down as one of the most elite teams in the history of college football.

Then they actually played the game. Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart and Vince Young all took the same field. It was reported that if any two of the three got within a certain radius, a minor earthquake would shake southern California.

I’m not going to sum up the entire game because, honestly, I didn’t watch most of it. But as a sports fan and someone with a pulse, I made sure to catch the end of the game.

It didn’t come as a shock to me that USC was winning, but it didn’t come as a shock that Texas had a chance at the end, either. It’s the way the gods work. They giveth and they taketh away, and the hype surrounding USC might have been its downfall.

Just to prove that it’s not only college sports where the gods are evident, this weekend the gods were all over the NFL.

Dating back to high school, Tom Brady had never lost a postseason game. His picture is next to the word “success” in the dictionary. Going into Saturday, there was no reason to believe that game would be any different. But the gods had other plans.

One muffed punt return, a fumble on a kickoff and a 100-yard interception return later, the gods put Brady in his place. No amount of Fraud Monitoring could protect Brady from their wrath. New England could lose with Brady at the helm, and now the entire world knew it.

Sunday took us from one streak of perfection to another. Since week three of the regular season, Indianapolis had been the odds-on favorites to win the Super Bowl. Even when its perfect season was lost, nobody in the Colts camp panicked. The Colts were too solid not to win.

But somewhere during the presentation ceremony Sunday, the gods showed up to bring everybody back down to earth. They came in the form of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense and a strong gust of air.

The Steelers, who became the first six-seed to advance to the conference championship, did everything right on offense, totaling only 10 less yards than the explosive Colts offense. Even still, the Colts had a chance to force overtime late in the game.

Two pieces of information need to be given before explaining the game-tying field goal attempt: 1) Mike Vanderjagt is statistically the most accurate kicker in the history of the NFL; 2) The Colts play in a closed dome. There’s no logical explanation for why Vanderjagt’s kick sailed so ridiculously off course. That’s because the gods hate logic.

So before you go placing bets on Duke to win another national championship or thinking the Pistons will go all the way, just remember one thing – the gods will be there, too.

Nathan Grimm is a sophomore in ALS. He can be reached at [email protected].