How Does One BLOW A 'Wheel Of Fortune' Puzzle This Badly?

This demands an investigation into a fix.

There's no possible way "Wheel Of Fortune" College Week contestant Zach from Portland's Reed College tanked this accidentally. I refuse to believe it.

It was all going so well Zach. He'd beaten his two competitors and made his way to the final puzzle. He had a lot of money riding on taking 10 seconds or less to decipher "M-A-G-_-C _-A-N-D." With kindergartners and anybody who's every ready about the first 15 pages of a Harry Potter novel screaming incessantly at their respective TVs, he was actually stumped.

Many go to bed night after night praying that the Universe, in all its abundance and generosity, would let them just once "earn" substantial money so easily. It had to be nothing less than a vote of no-confidence-whatsoever in America's post-secondary educational institutions that THIS WAS THE FINAL PUZZLE IN A "WHEEL OF FORTUNE" COLLEGE WEEK EPISODE.

And yet, there it was. And onward Zach babbled, after mercifully nailing "magic."

"Hand, band, yand, sand, band, cand, fand..."

For the record, per Dictionary.com, "yand" is not in fact a word. Surprisingly, "cand" and "fand" actually each have a recorded semblance of a definition.

As time ticked away and he was left to accept his public failure as a literate human being, he blurted out "wand" but did so with a short instead of long "a."

"Uh. Wow," said longtime host Pat Sajak, trying his damnedest to process what he'd just witnessed and starting to envy Alex Trebek. "It's a weird game and you just never know."

Oh, that's what he said. But on the inside?

And Zach, in his defense?

"That 'and' was so 'and'-y," he said.

This is an American college student, folks. There is the possibility he could one day become an elected official.

For f**k's sake, turn off the TVs, people, and pick up a book.