[FONT="]What was your toughest, hardest, most depressing, gut-wrenching loss to take?
Clemson? Kick 6? Cam's comeback?
For me, it's Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.
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These are in chronological order, and I'll let the reader decide which was worst.
1980 Miss State - I turned 11 a few days before. Keep in mind that since I had been a fan since 1978, I had NEVER HEARD OF US LOSING!!!!
I basically became a fan of football (first) and then Alabama right after the USC loss. So I'd never seen us lose. Worse, I was living in Columbus, MS, about 22 miles from the Starkville campus. They had a good team that year and all year long I'd heard about how "good" they were, so I couldn't wait for us to put the kibosh on them. When Pete Van Wieren came on the WTBS weekend scoreboard and showed the score, my mother erupted in laughter, and I thought it HAD to be someone's idea of a sick joke. 6-3? In football? That's a baseball score or maybe a really fun soccer or hockey match. I cried, God, I cried. I could NOT believe it.
The guy who lived two doors down from us was an elderly man. He walked over and turned off his radio and sat down and died of a heart attack. I'm not making that up. He really did. We just don't know if he was Bama or MSU.
1986 LSU - there was this geekette who was becoming good friends with my sorta gf and her Daddy was an LSU grad. They were such loud mouths, I'd never heard such. And to lose THE WAY we did - I'd never seen anything like it. My old man raised me to be a man, congratulate your conqueror and lose with class, but I'm sputtering both times Humphrey fumbles the ball inside the two going for scores. My Mom took my younger siblings to see "Top Gun" that night, and I was fuming. And my Dad - who was never one for excuses - told her, "Yeah, he's right - Alabama should be winning this one easily, it's not sore losing."
The fact it cost maybe the best team we had in the 80s post-Bryant the Sugar Bowl gnawed at me for years. I rooted for Nebraska to whip LSU in the Sugar Bowl and was glad they did.
1995 Arkansas - first of all (not to get political), Bill Clinton was President and I was living in Arky at the time. I loved the state, but I HATED the sports fans. Also, you gotta remember they'd won the b-ball title in 94 and lost the repeat in the championship in 95. So these folks were already on my last nerve. They outplayed us, I'll give them that. But to first of all win following a 12 men on the field they got away with combined with the questionable "catch" by JJ Meadors....and then to have to listen to those bloviating trash cans for a year, I tell ya, it made me want to volunteer for a deployment to Bosnia or something. I'd rather attend a Pentecostal healing meeting with 92tide and Jon than to live through that year with those numbskulls again.
But I think they all pale compared to.....
2013 Auburn
I was a much fatter guy that year (I lost 102 pounds and I've gradually put on about 25).
I had a bad feeling when Auburn beat UGA the way they did (with me on the Lake Lewisville Bridge no less - literally), and then we looked sloppy against MSU. I'd been following the game here and on GameCast, but I wanted to be home for ours. It was clear UGA was fighting, and when they scored I headed out the door. I'm in my car, and my brother the news producer calls me to give me play by play. He tells me Auburn is in something like a 4th and 17 at their own 27. I'm so sure we'll beat MSU, I know this is going to put the SEC in the bag. He goes, "Marshall drops back....steps forward.....he throws it......touchdown Auburn." And I scream, "WHAT?????" I'm on the bridge and damn near jerked the wheel to the right and off into the lake at 70 mph, it was so stunning.
Then he comes on and says, "You're really gonna get (ticked) when you see what actually happened. One guy tried to intercept and the other Georgia guy knocked it into the Auburn receiver's hands."
then we looked awful against MSU.
I had a feeling of impending doom when we failed to score on multiple drives. When Griffith kicked the ball, it looked like a pretty good kick, but I saw it come down. So I turned and looked right - I'd stood up - and tried to take a seat, and I see Davis hit the corner, and I'm like, "Oh....my.....""
I went completely numb, head to toe.
I've never done that anywhere, any time about a sporting event.
My Facebook feed was instant death. I've probably got 25 Alabama friends or so (more now), and it went from "we're just not doing it" to absolute silence.
The 2011 LSU game might have bothered me except that a week and two days earlier, I'd watched the Rangers blow the World Series.
I wasn't even surprised we lost that one.
