I can’t believe I’m typing this, but suddenly even the Browns aren’t as infuriating.

Believe me, I feel the same too. My enthusiasm for this year is shot, especially given this year’s expectations. Unless there’s some miraculous turnaround, I just don’t see Ohio winning the MAC. Heck, Buffalo will destroy us.

But hang in there! I’m an avid Browns fan and just maybe we might be back. Granted it’s taken 20 years. So Ohio will be win the MACC someday for sure. When, I have no idea other than it won’t be this year. But Ohio will someday win the MAC.

Now, to enjoy some beers at Octoberfest!

We have the biggest fan base in the MAC. We are constantly poised to take it to the next level in both football and basketball, but we can never quite do that because of strategic planning errors and game day mental errors. Today's end of the game head scratching play calling is a case in point. Imagine that we and not Buffalo had beaten a Power 5 Conference team by 29 points. It would reap future rewards the likes of which we cannot imagine. Yet, I doubt few in Buffalo will even notice. Sad on so many different levels.

I second all the sentiments in the thread.

When Cincinnati threw that deep TD pass I got the all too familiar feeling that it was happening again. We crack and allow big plays, shoot ourselves in the foot at the worst time, and rarely come up in the clutch. Which is a shame because we played a lot of good football today. After the first half I felt like the team had progressed and fixed a lot of issues in the trenches. Bad result in the end. Very sad!

We have all discussed the strategic planning errors the MAC and specifically our beloved Alma mater has made in the last few years, but just imagine that we played 3 quarters of good football in the last two games instead of 2. Any successful team strives for four quarters of quality play, but just imagine that we had put together 3 quarters and we were sitting at 3-0. Right now Midwest football analysts are talking about Buffalo when they do throw the MAC a bone for some time. Imagine that we were getting that time instead of Buffalo.

Remember Coach Solich's first game when we beat Coach Wannstedt's Pitt Panthers? Remember the buzz that created? Ohio along with Toledo and Northern Illinois are one of the few MAC teams that can generate the type of fan and media support that could bring us to the next level. Sadly it doesn't look like it will ever happen, that ship has sailed for a number of strategic reasons that might have been possible just a few years ago. There could have been a MAC version of Boise State, which would have been far more possible in the Midwest than in the Rocky Mountains, but Boise took advantage of their shot and no MAC team took advantage of their narrow window.

Much like Coach Danny Nee wistfully theorizing that had he not left Ohio basketball for Nebraska in 1986, he might have got us into the Final Four, football fans wonder what might have been if we had taken advantage of some of the possibilities that came our way in the last few years. Like Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) in "On The Waterfront," we could have been contenders if things had gone a little differently.

I am sure the Bronco faithful might have said the same thing 25 years ago about any number of schools that had much of their state's allegiance ranging from the Washington Huskies to the Oregon Ducks and BYU Cougars. Keep in mind, it wasn't until the mid 1990s that Boise State left the ranks of I-AA.

I think a more realistic comparison, in terms of support and being in a small town 90 minutes down the road from the flagship P5 program in the state capitol, is Utah State.

Since 2005, Utah State is 69-94, and 3-3 in bowl games (which includes, among other things, a hearty helping of potatoes).

They had one great year in 2012, when they went 11-2 with a 2 pt loss at Wisconsin and a 3 pt loss at BYU and ended up ranked.

Unfortunately, their coach was immediately poached by a P5 program (probably not coincidently, by Wisconsin); they had a couple more good seasons but then tailed off.

The way I look at it, today's disappointment notwithstanding, is that with new infrastructure, consistently competitive teams including 4 MACC appearances, bowl games and a couple of NCAA tournament runs on the basketball side, the past decade has been - speaking relatively, of course - the golden era of Ohio University Athletics.

Stuff happens. The Portland Trail Blazers infamously passed on Michael Jordan to draft Sam Bowie. Beat that.

Not old enough to know that...1960 (undefeated), 1962 (Sun Bowl) and 1968 (Tangerine Bowl) look good; 1965, not so much.