A child sits at the dinner table, unyielding to the food on his plate.
“I don’t care how long I have to sit here, I’m not eating this,” he mumbles to himself, even as his siblings clear their plates, enjoy a piece of chocolate cake and run off to play.
Cake is a pretty good payoff, but not tonight. The kid digs in deeper. He envisioned pizza or a hamburger, and instead, Mom served stroganoff.
“Eat up. We are not wasting food,” she says, before reaching deeper into her professional bag of psychotherapy. “There are millions of starving children in Africa.”
“Maybe we can send it to them?” says the insensitive boy, determined to not only ruin his night but to also take down the chef’s evening as well.
The mom, polished by her two older boys, would have nothing of it. She hits the kitchen light on her way out of the room, leaving him sitting in the dark with the plate of stroganoff that has since gone cold.
Gratitude is hard to swallow when it’s sacked by expectation.
BYU is not unlike that hungry and unhappy boy at the dining room table. What they wanted is not what they are getting, and they don’t like it.
Two weeks ago, the Cougars were standing perfectly upright, 9-0, and No. 6 in the College Football Playoff rankings. Life was great and expectations were soaring beyond anyone’s expectations. Some optimistic fans even booked flights for the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 7 in Arlington, Texas.
However, back-to-back defeats, in games BYU could have won, has the Cougars reeling at 9-2 and no longer in control of their postseason destiny. To reach the Big 12 title game, BYU must have Arizona State lose at Arizona (1:30 p.m. MST, Fox) or Iowa State lose to Kansas State (5:30 p.m. MST, Fox) while they need to beat Houston (8:15 p.m. MST, ESPN).
Adding additional discomfort is the fact that because BYU lost in the warm sunshine in Tempe, they will stage the home finale under the lights and in the cold in Provo, with game time temperatures near 30 degrees.
While it’s debatable what is worse, cold stroganoff or a cold Cougartail, they share a common denominator — expectations.
Back in the August heat, when BYU took the field against Southern Illinois, fans wondered if Jake Retzlaff was the right choice at quarterback and whether Jay Hill’s second year calling the defense would hold up in the Big 12.
BYU’s 41-13 win didn’t surprise anyone and by ESPN’s preseason projections, it brought the Cougars 25% closer to achieving their meager four-win total; however, when BYU beat SMU 18-15 in Dallas the following week, expectations shifted from none to some.
Another 34-14 road win at Wyoming pushed the Cougars to 3-0 — meaning the so-called experts expected BYU to lose all but one of their remaining nine games. Instead, the Cougars routed No. 9 Kansas State 38-9 to crack into the AP Top 25 at No. 23.
Next, BYU went to Baylor and beat the Bears 34-28. The following week, the Cougars handled Arizona 41-19 to reach No. 13 in the polls.
The concept of a special season, even a first-Big 12 championship game and College Football Playoff appearance, really came to life when Retzlaff hit Darius Lassiter for a 35-yard touchdown with 10 seconds remaining to beat Oklahoma State, 38-35.
Next, BYU went to UCF and hammered the Knights 37-24. After a week off, the Cougars marched into Rice-Eccles Stadium and kicked a 44-yard field goal as time expired to beat the Utes 22-21 and win in Salt Lake City for the first time since 2006.
With Kansas, Arizona State and Houston remaining on the schedule, it was no longer a pipe dream that a 12-0 run was a possibility. Such visions of grandeur were fertilized by the CFP rankings that boosted BYU to No. 6 and projected them into the Fiesta Bowl.
Those humble beginnings that included hopes of just getting bowl eligible were not only gone, but they were replaced with debates that BYU wasn’t being ranked high enough. The flexibility of fandom is unbridled, and when the team is winning, it is a thrill ride for the young and the old.
High aspirations, not low expectations, helped fill both LaVell Edwards Stadium against the Jayhawks and Mountain America Stadium against the Sun Devils. But inconsistent play and turnovers doomed BYU in both games and brought their out-of-this-world scenarios back to Earth.
Football isn’t as fun when it’s not flying high, just as it’s more enjoyable to eat pizza than Mom’s stroganoff. To move forward, both require adjusted expectations that are more closely aligned with the reality that neither is going to kill you, and there is always someone who has it worse. Thanksgiving is a perfect time to tackle all of it with appreciation and gratitude.
Life is pretty good for BYU — 9-2 is really good and the chance to finish 10-2, no matter what comes next, is something only three Cougar teams have done since 2009. The fact that something big could follow Saturday’s game is like a slice of pie that follows the feast.
The night before Thanksgiving at the McCanns is when the pumpkin pies come out of the oven. The aroma is enough to drive anyone out of their mind, especially me (and it’s so much better than stroganoff). As a young boy, I’d sit and stare at Mom’s annual holiday production and study how to extract a slice without anyone noticing.
Despite an enthusiastic approach, and some feeble attempts, it became obvious that taking a piece of pie without detection is nearly impossible. In fact, without an invitation, it wasn’t possible. So, one year, I asked to try an early piece of pie and to my surprise, Mom said, “Yes,” and it has grown into a yearly tradition.
This Thanksgiving is the first time BYU is playing for a slice of the college football pie. Even if they fail to reach and win the Big 12 championship, the Cougars will play in a bowl game against another Power Four opponent with the richest payout in program history.
The dream of access is now a reality, and it has the potential to recur every year. The good times ahead are promising, including Saturday, so long as our gratitude isn’t sacked by expectations.
By the way, I’d take a cold Cougartail over cold stroganoff any day of the year (sorry, Mom).
Happy Thanksgiving!
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.