Hello All,
I am breaking my pattern and posting this a couple hours after Miami lost. I am not going to do a running blog. I am not going to try and be witty. I am just going to write down once exactly how I feel after this Miami loss. Maybe it is because I want to be able to look back at it tomorrow and remember exactly how much I hate losing. Regardless, here it is.
Right now, I literally feel ill. I haven't eaten anything for about 7 hours and have no appetite. I took this loos probably a little too personally.
The best example is that a couple of my good friends called me after the loss. One wanted to talk about the coaching, one wanted to know when we were going to stop being a middle of the pack ACC team. They didn't call to say "I told you so", but they might as well have for the tongue lashing I gave them.
Were they mad about it? No. Do I feel bad for doing it? Not a bit.
Why? Because they know me, just like I know me, and the consensus is that I am a member of that lunatic fringe of fans that takes their team too seriosly. It might be a character flaw, but it is what it is.
Anyway, I am not going to write a play by play analysis of this game because it is unnecesarry. It was a bad game wherein the team looked flat and failed to come through a few times when it mattered most.
Everyone will be upset now, and maybe with some merit. It is the 6th year of ACC play for this team, and for the 6th time we will not play for a conference championship. Further, we look to be in trouble of our umpteenth straight late season slide. At no point during the game today did the team ever grab the tiger by the balls and use the momentum that was building.
I think back to the beginning of the season when my brother asked me what I thought about the coming season. I said that 8-4 would be about right to expect with our schedule, with anything better as gravy. I also said that we would play better early in the season than people thought and would lose a couple of games during the season that we shouldn't. The reason? As much as it sucks to say, this is a YOUNG football team. There are sophomores in every key spot. Look at how Florida, the current best program in the nation, played in 2007, when they transitioned from Ron Zook's guys to Urban Meyer's guys. 9-4. They also were loaded with talent everywhere because the Zooker had left them loaded. They had a coach who had just won a title and had been a head coach for years previously. Miami is in the middle of essentially starting over again.
Randy Shannon has a lot of shortcomings, but so does any great coach, Meyer included. He is the right guy for the program, and I am firmly in the Shannon apologist camp. The problem I have is that people are quickly forgetting that this team was TERRIBLE two years ago. The cupboard might not have been bare, but it was damn close. To put it in perspective, the roster was in worse shape then than when the NCAA tried to kill our program by taking away half of our scholarships during the Mid-90's...that's how bad Larry Coker was for our program.
SIDENOTE: Is there any greater example of how much better this regime is than the use of guys like Tervarris Johnson, who was a complete non-entity under Coker and is now a useful piece in the offense?
i guess my problem is that I shouldn't be as upset about this as I am, on a number of levels. But that doesn't change that I am this upset. When the game was over and my dad yelled something about how bad this game was, I agreed with him and yet still defended this team like it was my puppy. AND HE IS A HUGE FAN!
I am not really sure what exactly the point of all this is except that I guess I needed to vent, maybe to rationalize a little bit, maybe just to get it out somehow. And to answer my own question, I think it is a good thing that I am this upset. Sure, I knew this team was going to lose a couple of these games this year. But I guess my expectations are raised regardless.
The losses are not unacceptable at this point, but they still hurt like I am pissing Neon gas, and they still fester for days after. In other words, I know this loss isn't the end of the world, and that next week Miami will come out angry on Senior Day against Duke, and then come out big in what should be a night game against USF.
But it still hurts. I guess that's why I never really wanted to become a professional reporter. I love covering sports and writing about it, but I hate desensitizing myself to them. It is boring and monotonous and it makes sports seem like homework. The beautiful thing about sports is that I can cry with joy when my team wins and cry with grief when they lose. They arouse an emotion in me that almost nothing else does. I like being able to write about how I feel. It sucks when I am on the wrong end of it, but it is worth it when things go well.
I put up with it when I feel a team is worth it. For instance, I have become almost immune to the Orioles failing because I don't believe they have any hope. I still root for them and follow them throughout the season, but the losses just don't take a toll on me anymore. On the other hand, the 'Canes aren't there yet. They are still worth the investment. They are on the right track, and I will continue to rise and fall with their successes and failures. And so, I put up with the failures, even when it feels like I am going to throw up after. Because the juice is worth the squeeze.
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