Having your team lose its last game of the season always sucks. You're left with a bad taste in your mouth for the entire offseason, find yourself thinking about various "what ifs" for days or even weeks, and long for the next season to start so that your team can redeem itself. When a final contest materializes as a close game and / or with the postseason on the line, these losses can be especially painful. I'm still thinking about the excruciating way the Braves dropped their last three games of the season to the Phillies this past MLB season, squandering a seemingly guaranteed shot at the playoffs, and Princeton's failed buzzer beater attempt against Kentucky during the 2011 NCAA Tournament still finds its way into my thoughts from time to time.
I'm pretty sure, though, that Stanford's Fiesta Bowl defeat at the hands of Oklahoma State on Monday night won't ever be one of those games that keeps me up at night. Although the Cardinal ended the Andrew Luck era in especially devasting fashion - missing a relatively easy field goal at the end of regulation that would have handed Stanford a three-point win, and instead losing in overtime after yet another missed kick - it hasn't bothered me much over the past two days. As much as I now love Stanford football and spent so much time over the past two seasons rooting for and following the Card, the quirks of the BCS system don't really make Stanford's loss worth worrying about.
Postseason losses are so frustrating because they mean the end of the road for your team. For teams like the Braves or Princeton basketball, losses to the Phillies and Kentucky, respectfully, meant that their seasons had come to an end. I never got a chance to find out if Atlanta's young rotation and up-and-coming lineup could do some damage in the postseason. I'll never know if Princeton could have pulled another shocking upset in the Round of 32 and become the second Ivy League school in a row to advance to the Sweet 16. Their losses robbed me of those answers, and turned my questions into mere hypotheticals. In NCAA football, there is no next playoff game, win or lose. The difference between being Fiesta Bowl champions and Fiesta Bowl losers is surprisingly minimal. Regardless of this game's outcome, Stanford was going back to Palo Alto without a shot at the National Championship. Even if Stanford had made that kick at the end of regulation, their season would have ended, their journey over.
Of course I would much rather have had Stanford win the Fiesta Bowl than have lost it. But the most exciting thing about professional sports isn't winning a championship - it's the journey that leads to a championship. NCAA football's current BCS system robs fans of that journey, to a point where even the best teams - Stanford among them - have little to play for after the end of the conference season. In a weird way, I cared much more about seeing Stanford get to a BCS Bowl game than about how they did in the bowl game itself. Until fans get their much sought after major college football playoff system, the NCAA football postseason will always lack the passion and emotion associated with other sports.
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