By Matt Mauney | Associate Editor
Durant head football coach Mike Gottman said it best after the game Friday night.
“It’s hard to think about anything else right now,” he said minutes after a last-second drive to tie the game fell short with an incomplete pass in the right corner of the end zone. That led to the Cougars’ first — and only — loss this season and ended the magical run for Durant at 11-1.
It had been more than a year since Durant had to deal with the feeling of a loss.
On the sideline, you could sense that feeling. It was as if the players and even the coaches were in a state of shock. Not that the Cougars thought they were unbeatable or that they came in overly confident, but they simply weren’t used to the sting of defeat — especially in the way the game played out, with Durant looking to make a 95-yard drive with just a minute left to tie things up.
Any fan of football has felt this feeling when your team is in a similar position. You believe your team will win. Everything seems to move in slow motion until the outcome is realized. Then, a state of disbelief kicks in. You either feel like you’re on top of the world or that a 20-ton building just fell on you.
If you know the feeling I’m talking about, try to imagine what that feels like for the players on the field.
Those players, and especially the seniors, have a wave of emotions that hit them. Any coach in the country preaches to never give up until the final whistle. Being around the Durant football team all season, I could tell those players believed, so when the clock hit zero and the scoreboard read in favor of Newsome, those emotions came pouring out.
There was no time to let the thought of losing sink in. The game was in reach until the final second.
Some of the players who were on the field collapsed where they stood after the final play. Tears began to fill the eyes of several of the Durant players on the field and the sideline. Some stood or lay motionless on the field for what seemed like an eternity.
You could almost sense that they didn’t want to move forward, because that meant going to the middle of the field and shaking the hands of the Newsome players and coaches.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to show sportsmanship. It wasn’t that at all. It was simply that getting up and doing the post-game ritual of shaking hands meant the end of their season.
No more practices, and for many of the seniors, no more games.
Just as coach Gottman put it after the loss, I’m sure none of the players — be it a freshman or a senior — was thinking about what’s ahead in the future. They were thinking about what just happened and the season that was.
Now that reality has had a chance to sink in, I can say confidently that at least some perceptions of the players have changed. Sure, they still wish things went differently last Friday, but now, they have a new outlook on just how special this season has been, even if it’s their last time strapping on shoulder pads.
The seniors on this Durant team has laid the foundation for the future. Many counted the Cougars out this year, but they used that as motivation.
Let’s call it for what it is. Durant isn’t the most talented team in the state. Even if the Cougars went on to complete the run and win the state championship, that opinion couldn’t be argued.
This is a group that has few standout players and an even thinner list of seniors who will go on to play in college. This group was special because they were a blue-collar team that outworked other teams.
They often found themselves against bigger and more athletic teams but continually proved they can come out on top in those match-ups.
This Cougars team truly defined the meaning of the word “team.”
With the best season in the history of the school, the groundwork has been laid for the future.
With just a week removed from the heartbreaking end to the season, it may still be hard for some to swallow, but the Cougars proved themselves as a program to be taken seriously for anyone who may have doubted them.