It's NEVER easy being Green (Nebraska 28, Michigan State 24)

One would think that after being a Spartan fan for 35+ years, I'd be used to gut-wrenching losses, but I gotta tell you they never get easier, and in the pantheon of brutally painful losses, this one against Nebraska was a doozy.

A few posts ago, I wrote that all the emotion had essentially been beaten out of me throughout this season--well, as you probably could guess, that was not entirely true. I was up and down an emotional roller coaster throughout this game and was left speechless by the result--so ins short, I had plenty of emotion to give in this game.

Before I start going off on the officials for the absolutely horrendous pass interference call that gave Nebraska first-and-goal and, for all intents and purposes, the win--let me say that there was plenty of terrible officiating that went both ways.  Michigan State also had plenty of opportunities to ice the game, but were never able to make THE big play to accomplish that goal. That's been the story of this football season.

There were so many opportunities for the Spartans to put the final nail in the Huskers' coffin: the inability to pick up a first down on the final possession (just like in the Michigan game), the Johnny Adams penalty on the shoulda coulda been touchdown interception. (If you ask me, that play was the turning point in the game. MSU would have had all the momentum and a 17-point lead if that touchdown counts. Instead, the ball ends up on the MSU 10(ish) yard line and the Spartans only keep the ball for less than a couple minutes. Just a KILLER turnaround.

(I have gone back and viewed Johnny Adams' alleged penalty and it is, at best, a questionable call. More than the phantom pass interference, this call was the one that was the turning point in the game).

To tell you the truth, after that interception touchdown was called back, I had a sense of impending doom. Rip me all you want, but it probably comes with the territory of being a Spartan football fan. The game felt like the 2009 Iowa game: a game in which the Spartans, for the most part, played a very good game but just could not make THE DEFINING play to seal the deal. All throughout that '09 Iowa game, I had a feeling that it would not end well, and I had the same feeling today.

Well, enough about this for now. Maybe I'll write more about this later. All I really know at this point is that Obama better win on Tuesday or this will be one brutal Fall.