Someone once said "losing is like dying, you can't undo either one". Ok, I made that up. Albeit outlandish, the 5 stages of grief or loss is a real phenomenon that many eventually go through. For our purposes it will pertain to getting over what transpired Saturday. Through satire and sarcasm hopefully we can each traverse these steps together only to arrive rejuvinated next weekend against Bowling Green.
This first stop on the pain train is that of confusion, denial, and isolation. Pitt: 35 VT: 17 was the immoverable number sitting atop the scoreboard as the clock struck 00:00:00. However, for those sitting at Heinz field, at home, or barely clinging to a bar stool the fleeting thought of, "no, we haven't won yet, there's assuredly at least a quarter left right?" lingered only long enough for the silence to drag us back to our cars or bed. Still drunk and awestruck the next few hours would hold like a dense fog. Some of us crawling deeper into the bottle, others the safety of covers, not knowing if we were asleep, in a dream, or in some insufferable loop of reality.
Next up is the stage most visible along the path to serenity. Each one is a process and experienced at a length of time deemed appropriate by the individual. Nonetheless, Anger or BREAKEVERYTHINGPUNCHKITTENSRAGE is probably the most detrimental to our own as well as countless inanimate objects health. Within a few short hours the hashtag #FIREinsertname was strewn about every social media outlet available and enough F-bombs were dropped to carpet a small country. Some unfortunate souls seem to still be stuck here and will most likely emerge once their heads detach from their asses to move on to our next station, Bargaining.
Watching people go through the bargaining stage is like observing a hammered homeless man have a heated conversation with a lamp post. We curse ourselves for not wearing enough maroon and orange, giving enough high fives that morning, or just believing enough until the very end. Only IF we did this or that, we wouldn't be in this predicament. Short of suiting up and unthrowing 3 interceptions there was nothing we could rationally do, but that's not the point. Washing our lucky socks is really what did us in.
Fully realizing the error of our ways gets us to probably the lowest point in our journey, depression. Two years ago we lost to an FCS school, this year we lost to a school that lost to an FCS school. Is that our destiny? When Frank Beamer's legacy comes to a head will the plaque read "CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR LOL"? Packing up the car and removing the stickers is probably the next step as football as we know it is done for the season anyway right?
The answer is no, and feel free to read the literature before the final step.
Getting to acceptance shouldn't take that long for most. In fact, the more reasonable among us know that it's too early in the season to throw in the towel. Pitt was a bad loss. Not just bad, outright terrible. We came out with a very stale effort against a team "firing on all cylinders" (pardon the cliche). As many here have noted, we're still the frontrunner for our division and have plenty of time to correct the mistakes. We've been here year in and out while still putting together pretty successful seasons. Get some air, step away from the replays, and KEEP CALM AND HOKIE ON.
The Stages of a Bad Loss
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