The Cougars Longing for Growth After Heartbreaking Key to the City Loss
By: Junior Wide Receiver Adonis Hutchinson
The locker room was quiet. Helmets rested on the floor, shoulder pads half unbuckled, eyes fixed on the busted white board taken out by disappointment, mind in awe. Just minutes earlier, the roar on The Bob quickly faded into disbelief as Augustana celebrated on our turf, again. For the third straight year, the Key to the City stays on the other side of town. This time, after a fourth quarter tragedy, that to this day doesn’t feel real. We led 2810 early in the final quarter, in complete control, until it all slipped away.
As a player, and as someone a part of this rivalry for three years, the sting cuts deep. Rivalry games are about pride, legacy, and proving dominance. Losing three in a row especially in the fashion that we did is hard to put into words. “It’s tough,” Head Coach Jim Glogowski said during his postgame interview on The Coo Cast. “There’s no other way to say it. You feel every bit of that one. But we’re going to learn from it. We have to.” Augustana’s comeback was one for the books. Their freshman quarterback, playing in his first college start, threw two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter. A late two point conversion, a perfectly timed reverse play ultimately sealed the 2928 loss that left us stunned. For most of the game, though, it was all USF. Bubba Tann III scored twice on the ground, and Hank Brown Jr. added two more touchdowns, one receiving and one rushing. We moved the ball at will and outgained Augustana nearly 500 to 330 yards. Everything was clicking. Momentum in football is strange; it can swing off one stop, one penalty, one spark. Though even when they started scoring, the way the game was going it felt like a response was near. A response that never arrived. After the game, Coach Glogowski didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. The silence and the tears running down our faces said everything. But when he finally spoke, the message was clear. “Games like this don’t build your character, they test it,” he said. “You can’t control the past, but you can control your response. We have a choice, we either let this define us or we use it to grow.” At 43, we still have everything to play for. We can still reach 83, still fight for respect, and still show that this team is built for more. Monday’s team meeting wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. We watched the film, relived every missed tackle, every dropped ball, every empty redzone trip. “Sometimes,” Coach Glogowski said, “you must feel pain to learn how to grow. You can’t hide from it.” For the older guys, especially those of us who have been through all three of these rivalry losses, the lesson hits harder. We’ve seen what it feels like to win and what it feels like to lose when it matters most. We have got to use this to respond. Too many of us have fallen into this “illusion of choice” as Coach Glo would say. There is no other choice than to respond. There’s still more football left to play, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years here, it’s that this program keeps pushing. The Key might be on the other sideline for now, but next season, we’ll be ready to fight for it again with a gritty, experienced, sharp, and determined mindset.
