Honorable Mentions - Category Four - Nitpicking

 Nitpicking

Super Bowl LI : Atlanta Falcons vs. New England Patriots

The Warriors blew a 3-1 lead, and after this game, those signs stopped showing up at sports games.  It was irrelevant.  With the whole world watching (and the viewership of the Super Bowl greatly surpasses the NBA Finals) the Falcons told the Warriors to hold their beer.  The gold standard of a choke job, in a way that seems to still be defining the Falcons to this day, was gift-wrapped and handed to the Patriots.

A comeback for the ages is left off the list?  How? Why?

There are two sides to a great comeback.  Sometimes, the team coming back just puts things together at the end, and manages to play the game better in short spurts.  Sometimes, the team ahead starts playing terrible and invites the other team back into the game.  This game falls into the latter category. 

The Patriots game plan looked exactly the same after the 3:12 mark of the third quarter as it did before it.  The Falcons fell apart.  Was the moment too big for them?  A team that wasn’t tough enough to put it together for four quarters?  Pick your narrative but in either case, if the Falcons manage to play merely average football in the fourth quarter, the game is an afterthought in Super Bowl history. 

2018 Rose Bowl Game: Oklahoma Sooners vs. Georgia Bulldogs

See above, but replace Falcons with Sooner and Patriots with Bulldogs.  A bit less chokey but certainly worse defensive play throughout. 

Stanford at Notre Dame 10/13/2012

This is the game that made me a Notre Dame fan.  In 2012, I was deep in my Enneagram five mode, deep diving into college football history, and learning every single thing I could possibly absorb.  This had caused me to feel a blossom of love for the Fighting Irish develop.  So much history, so much tradition, and the best helmet in the sport.  Still, there hadn’t been a moment, and to be a real bought-in fan, you need a moment. 

There was no big comeback, no massive upset, and no wild shootout.  Two teams that were trying as hard as possible to keep 1960’s football alive with a commitment to three yards and a cloud of dust mentality.  A slugfest without either team ever claiming a lead of over seven points.  They threw haymakers for four quarters and then decided to throw a few more. 

After an Irish touchdown in overtime, the Cardinal had to respond in kind to force a second bonus period.   They crawled down to the goal line and tried to enforce their will, to play football on their terms.  Between the tackles, short handoff, push for the end zone.  And they went 0-4.  A turnover on downs, with three replay reviews to boot, and the Irish stayed unbeaten.  As great as the moment was, and as epic as the stand still rings, three booth replays is a long time to stretch out a special moment.

UCLA Bruins at Washington State Cougars 09/21/2019

By 2019, Washington State had found themselves in an uncommon place, with expectations.  The Cougars under pirate/head coach Mike Leach had proven a consistent player in the PAC 12 north race, entering the contest with a number 19 ranking nationally.  The Bruins, who had mostly spent the last decade doing a Washington State impression with impressive streaks of futility, were under first year head coach Chip Kelly, a recent washout from the NFL, and generally assumed to have let the game pass him by.  The 0-3 Bruins had done nothing so far that season to indicate the narrative was ill-suited. 

With 6:52 remaining in the third quarter, the home team Cougars had stretched out to a 49-17 lead, and UCLA had shown as many signs of life as a Los Angeles storm cloud, 0-4 was a statistical certainty.  Then the Cougs had the meltdown of all meltdowns.  By the end of the game, UCLA was kneeling out the clock for a win.  They picked up the game winning touchdown with over a minute to spare.  And no, not barely squeaking out a lead because the defense turned rock solid.  They still gave up another 14 points.

After that 49-17 lead was established, the Bruins scored 4 touchdowns in under five minutes ALL ON OFFENSE!  Four second half fumbles, all lost, broke the Cougars.  In a losing effort, Cougar quarterback Anthony Gordon threw for 9 touchdown passes!  He lost!  67-63 final and the Cougars fans stumbled home in the dark about 1 AM local time with as painful a loss as one can imagine.