After years spent wandering in the college football wilderness alongside the ghost of SMU and Bo Jackson, the Washington Huskies were very good this season. They won the Pac-12 with a 12-1 record and managed to overcome a selection committee full of comic book villains and East Coast bias to qualify for the College Football Playoff. This meant that the Huskies got to spend their New Years Eve in Atlanta getting beat by a clearly superior Alabama team 24-7.

That said! Despite the margin of defeat, the Huskies acquitted themselves fairly well on the big stage. The defense in particular shined. Alabama wore teams down all season long with their running game, and aside from one huge game-ending play, the Huskies did pretty well. Meanwhile, despite missing some of their best pass rushers, they managed to get to Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts and limit his effectiveness in the passing game. Alabama’s offensive effectively created 14 points and half of that came on one big play. That’s pretty good defense!

Unfortunately, Jake Browning and the Huskies offense didn’t acquit themselves well, at all. Faced with an NFL-caliber defense Browning was able to create offense on the team’s second drive, and then stopped being able to create offense. Worse, Browning threw a crippling pick-six at the end of the first half that functionally sealed the game. Superstar receiver John Ross’ biggest play was a game-altering fumble. And the running game couldn’t get anything going against Alabama’s 15 NFL-caliber linebackers (number estimated).

Really, though, despite a massive talent disparity, the Huskies lost because they had two huge plays go against them, and went 0-2 recovering fumbles. That’s not bad! Sure they lost, but they weren’t losers. Clearly, if anyone was a loser it was Ohio State, which got blown out by Clemson.

But really, since we’re talking college football, the losers were everyone. All the players who went unpaid. All the villainous coaches stealing money from the state and ruining their lives working 140 hour weeks trying to trick high school kids into committing to unpaid labor. Michigan tight end Jake Butt who blew out his ACL in a meaningless bowl game and is also named Butt. The Huskies who lost. And finally me, someone who knows better but watched the team I like get their asses kicked as part of an institution I despise. Happy 2017, ya’ll.

*blows a party blower, gets smacked in the face with it*