Cupcakes are supposed to be found at birthday parties – not stories about college football.

At an alarming rate, sports reporters are taking cupcakes out of the oven and placing them in their work. Turn on ESPN and you'll hear football analysts such as Mark May yelling about cupcakes. Open the paper and you’ll see articles in the sports section about cupcakes.

It doesn’t make any sense, right? Instead of describing a poor football opponent as a ‘bad team’ or ‘mismatched’, everyone resorts to using the dreaded ‘cupcake’ – or ‘tasty treat’ or ‘pastries’ or ‘creampuffs’.

Enough already. This isn’t an attack on any one channel or publication because nearly everyone is guilty. This is simply pointing out a cliché epidemic.

Its origins can’t exactly be traced. But somewhere along the line, really good football teams started playing really bad football teams by choice in their non-conference schedule. Think Kansas’ upcoming game against Sam Houston State.

Some sportswriter somewhere – who deserves to be slapped – must have gotten tired of explaining why the losing teams were so unsuccessful and how fun it was for the juggernaut to pummel them. So he came up with cupcake, which must mean the good team devoured the not-so-good team like a kid with a sweet tooth does to a frosting-topped cup of flour.

It probably sounded creative the first time it was used. Not so much after 5,477,884th time. If ESPN.com re-wrote this list from a few years ago, cupcake would have to be included.

Sportswriters cringe when coaches use clichés. Mark Mangino talking about taking it one week at a time or sawing wood is excruciatingly painful to us. Therefore, it’s hypocritical to turn around and use clichés in our writing.

Sure, it’s brought a few comical moments – such as this KUsports.com headline from a year ago or this blog entry. Overall, however, it has become arguably the most overused term in sports.

I’m not trying to come off as arrogant or holier-than-thou. I’m as guilty, if not more so, as anyone when it comes to using clichés in sports stories. It happens. But cupcake is simply the most irritating one at the moment. Someone has to speak up.

Cupcakes do not exist in college football. Underwhelming opponents do.