They’re college football whiz kids, except when they’re not

College football has always been equal parts passion, roller-coaster emotions, high stakes, split decisions and handing your teenager the keys to the car.

This weekend was only the latest rambling wreck.

How could Georgia Tech look so bad in losses to Virginia and Miami and then dismantle the No. 5 team in the BCS standings?

“They are 18- to 21-year-olds,” Georgia Tech Coach Paul Johnson explained after Saturday’s upset win over Clemson. “I keep telling people that, but they don’t want to listen.”

Texas Tech, a week after shocking Oklahoma in Norman, lost by 34 at home to Iowa State.

How?

It’s a game of inches and ages, that’s why, and trying to tap into skulls located underneath backward baseball caps leads only to more head scratching.

Oklahoma had won 39 straight games at home and Iowa State showed up at Texas Tech riding a four-game downer streak.

Coaches see this coming but can’t seem to stop it.

“They get patted on the back and talked about,” Texas Tech Coach Tommy Tuberville said of post-victory hero worship. “You know, it’s hard to handle a lot of those things.”

Red Raiders quarterback Seth Doege, so brilliant at Oklahoma when he threw for 441 yards and four touchdowns, thought he was ready for Iowa State.

He ended up completing only 16 of 32 passes with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

“Tonight kind of proves that maybe some of us were still on cloud nine,” Doege said.

Oklahoma had an exact-opposite week, rebounding from its horrendous home Texas Tech loss by pounding top-10 Kansas State in Manhattan.

Care to explain?

“I think sometimes you just get complacent when you play at home and in front of our fans, and you let it slip,” Sooners linebacker Travis Lewis said.

Michigan State at Nebraska, if you were paying attention, was a 24-3 accident waiting to happen.

Only days removed from beating Wisconsin with a Hail Mary over pass, Michigan State was emotionally ambushed in Lincoln.

“What a difference a week makes,” Michigan State Coach Mark Dantonio offered.

Texas A&M lost at home to Missouri, the Aggies’ third defeat this season after holding a double-digit lead at halftime.

Whatever Coach Mike Sherman is selling at intermission, his players aren’t buying.

Such is the bane/beauty of college football. The stakes are huge, but there’s no playoff or safety net. It’s a razor’s edge from September to November involving players who have dates on Sunday and tests on Monday.

Louisiana State and Alabama, No. 1 and No. 2 in Sunday’s latest Bowl Championship Series standings, play each other in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Saturday.

The winner owns the inside track to the title game, with everyone else lining up at the No. 2 ticket booth.

The unknown and its sometimes unintended consequences consistently make the sport compelling, fragile and, sometimes, excruciatingly cruel.

Wisconsin, buried now at BCS No. 20, is out of the national title race after consecutive last-minute defeats involving sophomores, juniors and replay officials.

Last week the Badgers lost to Michigan State on a scoring pass that deflected off a player’s facemask.

This week, gut-wrenching defeat introduced itself at Ohio State with the winning pass coming with 20 seconds left on a 40-yard touchdown pass from a freshman quarterback, Braxton Miller, to freshman receiver Devin Smith.

“It was another heartbreaking loss for us,” Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema said.

Youngsters can be so precocious.

Ohio State Coach Luke Fickell said that Miller, before trotting onto the field for the final drive, “looked at me and winked.”

Texas Christian is 6-2 now but counted out among the elite weeks ago because of a 50-48 loss to Baylor and an overtime defeat by Southern Methodist.

TCU, last year’s Rose Bowl winner, can’t even crack the BCS top 25.

Stanford remains on a title track in part because USC Coach Lane Kiffin asked a sophomore receiver to think like a 10-year professional.

With nine seconds left in regulation and USC needing five yards to get into better winning field-goal range, Kiffin called a crossing pattern in which Robert Woods was required to make the catch and kill the play before the clock expired.

Woods, of course, should have downed himself and called time instead of racing desperately for the sideline.

His inexperience put the game in the hands of historically shaky Pacific 12 Conference officials, who ruled time had expired, allowing Stanford to win a thriller in triple overtime.

It is at the coach’s own peril that he puts the outcome onus on a young player.

Vanderbilt Coach James Franklin seemed content in setting up for a score-tying field goal only yards away from defeating Arkansas in regulation.

Sophomore Carey Spear, born in 1992, pushed a 27-yard field-goal attempt right and Vanderbilt lost.

Coaches, as much as they can, have to make sure the most important levers are pulled by them.

Even veterans such as Stanford junior quarterback Andrew Luck make freshman mistakes.

His late pick-six nearly cost Stanford everything Saturday night.

Youth can be served in college football, but, as we see week after week, it can also be served up.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com