Undefeated in Theory: The Seasonless High of Preseason Hope

There’s a strange beauty to 0-0. The scoreboard hasn’t betrayed you yet. No play has been fumbled, no coverage blown, no locker room speech turned bitter. Everything is pristine—possibility wrapped in silence. And in that silence, a quote cuts through like champagne:
“This is my favorite time—we are undefeated.”

At first glance, it’s a joke. A coach winking at the absurdity of preseason optimism. But linger there. Because what he’s really describing is a moment rarer than victory itself—a moment where belief exists untethered to reality.

The Clean Slate Myth

No sport mythologizes the reset like football. Each spring, every team drinks from the same fountain: a new QB, a retooled line, a draft steal that “fell into their lap.” It’s not hope—it’s strategy. Sell the dream. Fill the seats. Delay the reckoning.

But this quote doesn’t mock that machinery. It honors it. Because every team knows what’s coming. The season will strip the illusions. The injuries will come. So will the bad calls, the finger-pointing, the heartbreak.

And still, for one brief window, they get to pretend otherwise.

There is power in that pretense.

A Love Letter to the Lie

What the coach really means is this: before reality reclaims us, let me stay here a little longer. In this strange purgatory between last year’s failure and next week’s first down. Let me enjoy the feeling of being undefeated—not in record, but in spirit.

Because soon, some team will start 0-1. Some franchise will lose three in a row. The media will circle. The fan base will boil. The season will begin not with joy, but with panic.

But not today.

Today, everyone wins by default.

And sometimes, that’s the sweetest victory of all.