That had to be about the most painful way to lose a game. First, for the first time in forever, your fan base is actually excited about football and you sell out your season opener. Sellouts (where there are a majority of tech fans, not when the visitor's fans fill up their stadium) at GT are very rare. After last season, their fans and students were actually fired up about this game. They even did a whiteout and it was pretty successful.
Second, in spite of your offense not living up to the hope and hype of the preseason, your defense has pretty well shut down the opponent and you are leading with less than a minute to play. You are fired up and fully expect to pull out a win. Your confidence and new found passion is being rewarded.
Then...the other team scores with around 30 seconds to play to take a one point lead. This is devastating, but you hope against hope your team can find a way to get a last second field goal to salvage the victory. You have a great new QB that the media has been fawning over. Surely, he can bring the team down the field and into field goal range.
Then...your team drives down the field, hitting a long pass to get into field goal range with 15 or so seconds left. Your coach lets the clock run down to 3 seconds, calls timeout and brings out your kicker, who is good. The attempt isn't a chip shot, but it is very makeable.
Your team lines up for the kick, you are full of hope and optimism as you fully believe you are about to see a great last second victory. Then...the other team blocks the kick and you lose by 1 POINT as time expires.
I can't think of a much worse way to lose.
www.espn.com
