One of my favorite shows on the History Channel is “Engineering Disasters.” It showcases famous manmade disasters throughout history, such as dam collapses or airplane crashes, and studies the underlying causes.

Very rarely do things happen without a reason. There’s almost always something behind it, often in a Rube Goldberg-like chain of events days, months or years in the making.

The same principles apply to sports, as our local high school football teams are finding.

St. Aloysius and Porters Chapel are both sitting at 0-6, with the potential of winless seasons staring them in the face. Neither has an easy schedule over the last four weeks of the season.

On the surface, it looks like a simple case of two bad football teams. Do some digging, though, and it’s obvious there are underlying causes contributing to their struggles.

PCA has been decimated by injuries. At one point, the Eagles were missing 11 players from their 33-man preseason roster. That’s an entire team, especially considering most of them played both offense and defense. Few programs, at any level, could have success with that staggering number of losses.

So, the Eagles look bad and might even be a bad team. Part of it is having to move people around. When you have to stick a 160-pound running back at guard, it usually doesn’t end well. It’s hard to know how good they could have been if everything had held together.

Over at St. Al, the Flashes have also battled injuries and depth. Not quite to the degree that PCA has, but they too have struggled to field their regular lineup as it was conceived in August.

St. Al has been competitive. In four of its six losses, it has had the lead or been tied in the second half. Three of them were by a touchdown or less. If there is such a thing as a good 0-6 team, the Flashes might be it. It’s not a stretch to think they can bounce back, win their district and still make the playoffs.

There are different degrees of “bad” in sports, and almost always a reason for why things go south. Sometimes it’s a bad play, sometimes it’s a bad break, and sometimes it’s something that happened weeks ago coming home to roost.

For fans of PCA and St. Al, it’s important to understand those reasons. You don’t have like losing, but it helps to take an analytical eye to it and figure out why it happened.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com.