Maybe this is a bit of a Pollyanna-ish take on this situation, but I'm going to look at the silver lining of this loss: We haven't truly been tested all season, and tonight's game was a massive wake-up call, the way the scUM matchup was for us last year.

I now totally understand how Oregon got blown out so badly by the Buckeyes in the Rose Bowl--having gone undefeated in the regular season and B1G (including a narrow escape against us in Eugene), the team (and coaches) got complacent. By the time the fighting Donalds realized what was happening, they were getting rudely hurled out of their first game in the CFP by a Scarlet and Gray tornado.

We got to feel the bitter sting of our frontrunner status being ripped from us tonight, and I'm grateful that we got to learn this lesson before the playoffs, and not during them.