Nov 15, 2024
9:28:43am
TheDash All-American
On moving the bar for a successful season:
1. Don't. If you thought making a bowl game was a success, then as a fan you have succeeded. Put your feet up and enjoy it. Every game from this point on is pure entertainment.

2. But you're going to, we all do. We thought a bowl game would be awesome, but now...we want more. This is human. It's also stupid. So let's realize that and try some things to keep from ruining what should be a very, very happy situation. First, rewatch the wins. Set The Cut up on loop. Or, if you really need some perspective, rewatch entire games. If you're a nutjob like me, you have a library of past games--remember, only one of those seasons was undefeated. Doesn't make the Miracle Bowl any less amazing. Doesn't change the joy of Harline or George. Similarly, this season's games are great to watch. They're wins, and wins are yummy.

Second, resist the urge to catastrophize about the future. Since you did not have BYU running the table this year, your previous expectations are likely exceeded already. Remember that. Do not watch Kansas games (or ASU, etc.) to try to guess at future matchups and where BYU might be vulnerable. That isn't your job, in the first place, and it will do absolutely nothing to help the team--or you. You want to be a football wonk? Watch some other team's games and future opponents and guess the scores of those games. But BYU sits too close to you, it's a gravity well, and it will eat you up fretting about Saturday. Just don't do it.

Third, if all else fails, work through the potential outcomes. So BYU loses big on Saturday to Kansas. Then what? Then essentially nothing. BYU will still be top of the table in the XII. Win the conference and we still go to the playoff. What about if we then lose to ASU? Then mass chaos at the top of the XII, which would be fun, and BYU still has a home game in hand where anything can happen. What if we lose to Houston, too? That would be sad. We would almost certainly not make the XII Championship, and have to console ourselves with a medium-tier bowl game against someone like Nebraska or USC. On a scale from Celestial to Catastrophic, that's still toward the top end. Two years ago we'd have given a kidney for that. Last year we'd have definitely been willing to sell one of the kids. This year try to remember that is the WORST CASE at this point.

Believe me, I'm where you are. But I'm trying very hard to remember that most of the good in any situation is the NOW, not the future. Blowing off the joy of the now because possibly something bad could happen later is moronic. I'm a Mormon, not a moron.

50 teams don't make bowl games. They are sad. 60 teams make bowl games, and 30 of those teams lose. They are sad. Twelve teams will make the playoff, and eleven of them will be crying at the end. That's a whole lot of sadness. Take the happiness while it's flying high.
TheDash
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TheDash
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Nov 15, 2024
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