From a Man Who Has Been There...

The day after. 

It feels a whole lot like last night, only a little worse because you wake up and realize this wasn't just a bad dream. You won't turn on SportsCenter and you probably won't eat breakfast. You'll drive to work with no music playing in your car. You'll be alone with your thoughts and that final score will haunt you for days, weeks... years. 

I've been there. I'm an Ohio State fan.

Some of you may remember me. I visited ATQ frequently leading up to the Rose Bowl last year. I enjoyed the conversation I had with you Duck fans and I grew to appreciate the culture of Oregon football. I followed your team this year and I was pulling hard for you guys last night. Unfortunately things didn't end the way we wanted them to. 

From a die-hard fan who has watched his team lose two national championship games, I come to you with a guide for how to cope with this loss. You might say you don't need my help -- that you have experienced this kind of pain just last year after the Rose Bowl. Let this be my first warning -- it's not the same. It's much worse. 

Lets get the first week out of the way. There's no way around it -- it is going to suck. It is going to suck really, really bad. You'll get together with your Oregon friends and you won't talk about the game. It's as if something horrible has happened to a family member and no one wants to talk about it because it's just too awful. You don't even need to say anything. You just know. 

In a couple of days, you might turn on your television and watch ESPN, hoping that they've already moved on to other things. You'll catch some NBA highlights and maybe 10 minutes of NFL playoff talk. Then, like a monster in a horror film, National Championship game highlights will pop out of freaking nowhere and ruin everything. You'll turn the channel and wish the entire ESPN family of networks would fall asleep so Freddy Krueger could kill it with force. Then you realize that's not possible because ESPN is Freddy Krueger. He will live in your dreams and terrorize you for a long, long time. 

You might get mad. Different fans have different reactions. Some of you might be damn proud of your football team. Some of you might feel robbed of some greater glory that escaped your team somehow. Some of you might be bandwagon homers who send your team a sassy Beyonce break-up song in an effort to escape the pain. My advice -- do whatever you have to do to get through this first week.

It does get a little better. Time will give you some perspective. You'll look back at the 2010 football season and have fond memories. You'll remember coming back against Stanford like I remember outlasting Michigan (in 2006) for the biggest win of the year. You'll save that game on your DVR, and in two years you'll rewatch it and tell everyone in the room that this is what your team was supposed to look like on January 10. You'll be able to smile at the huge plays in that game, but you'll feel a little knot in your stomach thinking about what could have been. 

Sooner or later, you are going to run into a wet, flapping douche bag who finds out you're an Oregon fan. He'll say "22-19!" and hump the air like it's the sweetest lover he has ever had. He'll ramble on about EEESSS EEEEEE SEEEEE speed and God's conference and EEESSS EEEEEE SEEEEE speed and Nick Fairley and EEESSS EEEEEE SEEEEE speed. You might have the patience to wait for the guy to break and maybe allow you to say something. That moment will never come. Ten minutes later, you'll find out the guy is an Ole Miss fan. You'll ask why the hell he is gloating about a game that his team didn't even play in. He'll respond by sneezing the letter EEESSS and finish it off by screaming EEEEEE SEEEEE. He'll walk away eating a bowl of chili with his bare hands. 

That won't be your last run in. You'll occasionally have SEC fans pop up on one of your threads like an unwanted genital wart. You just have to deal with it any way you can. One warning -- do not try and reason with them. They'd rather admit that Bruce Willis is a fantastic singer/performer than reason with you. Admittedly, that analogy was a little weak, but I just saw this YouTube video of Bruce Willis singing... apparently he tried to start a singing career back in the 80's. Did you know that? Seriously, check it out -- I'm not kidding. He even had an album titled "The Return of Bruno". What a crazy asshole. 

Anyway, this will be a long offseason. The next 235 days will move as slow as a Big Ten running back (HURR DURR SEC!)... You see? After a while, it'll start to wear on you. I'm nearly envious of you Oregon fans who are new to the program. Unknowingly, your world was just opened up to a landfill of toxic SEC humor. I like to think that by now, I'm numb to it. I pray that you folks can handle their banter better than I have. 

You'll be starved for football. That's what happens when you lose a National Championship Game. After the first week, all you'll want to do is watch your team take the field again so you can wash that nasty taste from your mouth. Spring football will be a brief oasis. You'll go to your spring game and hope will erupt for next year. Hopefully the summer will be kind to you. Maybe you can go on a vacation -- perhaps somewhere sunny. My only warning, do NOT go to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head looking for an escape. That's SEC country. Luckily you folks are on the west coast. Go to California and laugh at the thought that Lane Kiffin coaches a team that resides in that state. 

Count down the days. That's all you can do. Only 235 days until your Ducks take the field again. On the other sideline, you'll have an SEC team waiting to kick off their season. I hope you rip LSU to shreds. I hope it takes a little sting off of this National Championship loss. It probably won't, but maybe it'll start a run of games that leads you back to the BCS title game. And hopefully then, I'll be on the other side of the stadium cheering on my Buckeyes, praying to God I don't have to repeat this process for a third time in six years myself.