Why is it that emotion sometimes wins over logic?

I was in line at the car rental counter in the Orlando airport when some guy notices my block O shirt and comments, 'too bad you didn't have a great year'. I replied, 'It was a pretty good year.' And he says, 'I graduated from Alabama.'

Well, I thought about congratulating him. I thought about saying that they lost early and we lost late. I thought about saying, "F*** you". But I just commented that their QB played surprisingly well during the playoff and they played a very good game against Clemson. He was clearly in gloat mode, claiming that Nick would win a couple more NCs. I said he would be gone within 3 years with no more championships, especially since little Nick couldn't beat Urban on the big stage.

After the guy behind me (an objective and intelligent Minnesota fan) joined the conversation, Mr. Alabama shut up. He ended up getting his car, and the other MN and I gave him crap about taking too long, but overall it was a generally friendly conversation among strangers.

It takes me a while to process things, and eventually I realized several things. First, so many weird twists of fate made the season what it was, from the MSU win over UM and our loss to them to Ala losing to a weak MS team to our team dealing all season with sky-high expectations. Second, I don't even think of AL as true national champions because they did not play us. Third, I am too spoiled of an OSU fan to consider what it would be like to be a fan of Minnesota or Illinois or Purdue or Rutgers or most Big 12 teams.

But I think what I learned most is that I don't have to defend anything. Our program speaks for itself, the network of OSU fans is world-wide, Urban Meyer is a coaching legend, and all is right with the world. You can take the boy out of Ohio, but the OSU fan remains forever. So maybe it is ok to be emotional once in a while.