This one was just an absolute house of horrors for me. A giddy Iowa pressbox with clapping and reporters yelling things like "oh, great cut!" I go to put my AirPods in my ears and turn on noise-cancelation and one of the AirPods is at 0% because there was some kind of dustball down at the bottom of the charger and it didn't charge in the case. That meant I couldn't drown out the noise until I charged them.

And then, after a brutal, gut-punch loss where we give up the winning TD with four minutes left, I go to find a quiet place to record From The Stands without having to go down to the main stands... and I end up right next to some booth where Iowa fans (staff?) are celebrating. You'll hear that in the background of this FTS.

I get back to my pressbox seat and they're playing the Iowa press conference over the speakers and on the TV's. I swear to God, this was the question I heard being addressed to one of their players as I sat down:

"You guys have been through so much adversity this year - Cade getting injured and Brian (Ferentz) getting fired and everything else. What's it like to keep winning The Iowa Way?"

He actually said "the Iowa way." As part of an actual media-to-player question.

Those are the people that own us. That's the general ethos of the place where we haven't won since 1999. I will wear Illini gear when I head to breakfast tomorrow morning at my hotel, and everyone will point and laugh, and I won't be able to do anything about it. All I can do is keep on believing and keep on getting laughed at. Ron from Muscatine gets to be happy every time we come here. And my team hasn't made Ron sit back down in his seat since 1999.

Owned by Iowa. IOWA. It will never not hurt.