In a way, it’s all that accumulated suffering that made Saturday mean so, so much more than upsetting #11 Texas or #8 WSU ever will. Those wins were moments to be savored, celebrated.
This, though, was a small offering to the ghosts of Yesteryear and Never Was, the What Could Have Beens we’ve chased together each fall since, the ones that have stayed with us as we graduated into the working world, and parenthood, and old age.
They are not gone. Probably never will be.
But for the first time in a long time, they can rest.