If you've been an athlete at any level and you truly cared about the sport you were playing, you know the pain that comes with a season-defining loss. I only ever competed at the high school level, and there are still a handful of losses that bother me well over a decade later. Whether that's emotionally healthy or not, I don't know, but at the very least, it allows me to put myself in Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord's shoes, and let me tell ya, the young man is probably shattered right now about Ohio State football's loss.

It was an interception thrown by McCord, his second of the afternoon, that ended the game against Michigan and ended Ohio State football's hopes of winning the Big Ten. The odds of Ohio State football reaching the College Football Playoff are slim, and I guarantee you McCord is putting all of that on his own shoulders.

“It hurts, that's really the only word for it. To work that hard for that opportunity and just to come up a few plays short hurts. There's no way around that, so it's a tough one,” McCord said to reporters following the game, per Tom VanHaaren of ESPN. McCord continued, saying, “You prepare all offseason and prepare all year long and your season really comes down to a handful of plays, whether you make them or you don't. And I think that just goes to show the margin of error, especially in games like this, are so slim.”

This is the first time in the last three meetings between Big Ten behemoths that The Game has come down to a handful of plays, as McCord mentioned. In 2021 and 2022, Michigan won each game by at least two touchdowns. This year, it was only a six-point differential at the end of the game.

And of course, those are the losses that end up staying with you for over a decade.