ESPN - Coaches reflect on their worst career losses

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Gus Malzahn, Auburn: Two HS state championships + Florida State 34, Auburn 31, 2014

The worst coaching loss of my career, there's a couple that stand out -- two when I was in high school. Our two state championship games we lost, one was in double overtime. The other one was at the very end, and then probably the Florida State game from 2013. Those three really stick with me. I think about those once a week. One, 1994, that was the first place I coached, and we lost 17-13 at the very end. The other one, when Rhett Lashlee was my quarterback and we lost in double overtime to a team that we probably should've beat. And of course the Florida State (national championship) game when they threw a touchdown toward the very end. Those were the three. It motivates you. The only time I think about the championship (we won) is when somebody brings it up, but once a week I think about [those losses] and it just motivates you as a coach.

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Bobby Petrino, Louisville: Rutgers 28, Louisville 25, 2006

Rutgers, 2006. We win that game, we have an opportunity to probably play for the national championship. We were in control of the game and they came back in the second half. They kicked a last-second field goal, which he missed. We jumped offsides. They got to kick it again. It was one of those things that was devastating to our team at the time, but very proud about how we came back and didn't lose another game that year.

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Dabo Swinney, Clemson: Alabama 45, Clemson 40, 2016 January 11.

That one is still with me.

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Mark Richt, Miami: Oklahoma 13, Florida State 2, 2001

The last game I coached at Florida State as the offensive coordinator playing in the national championship game against Oklahoma. We scored a whopping zero points. Our defense scored two. I didn't coach well. We didn't play well. It was a chance to be right there to win a third national championship for Coach Bowden. In the last game there it would have been a nice way to finish

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Kirby Smart, Georgia: Auburn 10, LSU 9, 2004

It's hard because you remember the losses so vividly. I guess from being at Alabama for nine years, you certainly remember a lot of the losses, but I guess that being my first year as a full-time SEC coach (at LSU). So I go from being a GA to being a -- because they had just won the national title, so my expectation was we're going to win another one at LSU. We had a lot of the players back, and this first really, really big game, in Jordan-Hare, and we had the game won. Everything had to happen exactly right for [Auburn] to win and there was like four or five plays in a row that were really crazy freaky plays. If that game comes back up on ESPN Classic, I'll see it, and I'm like, 'That is amazing that those four things happened for the outcome to be what it did.' They went on to an undefeated season. I guess if they had lost four or five games it wouldn't have been as big of a loss, but it's a fact that they went on to win them all. I'll be honest with you, when I say it haunts me, it's one of the ones that sticks out the most, because I thought we could've won it.

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