A few years back, I spoke with future Hall of Famer John Smoltz -- a starting pitcher, then a closer, then a starter again -- about the ninth inning of a baseball game and how difficult those final three outs are to get.
He told me, as you'd suspect, that they're so dramatically different than the previous 24. The pressure is so much higher that every pitch and result is magnified, causing a player -- often the pitcher, if his emotions aren't in check -- to overthrow or miss his target entirely.
The best closers in baseball, like Smoltz in those years when he pitched the ninth, are mechanical, robotic. They're consistent.
All right, this isn't Buster Olney or Keith Law's blog, so let's relate it to football and the closing stretch for the three undefeated teams. The Kansas State Wildcats, Oregon Ducks and Notre Dame Fighting Irish are feeling things that probably weren't previously a part of their psyches, certainly not in August and maybe not even a few weeks ago.
• BCS No. 1 Kansas State finishes with a trip to Baylor on Saturday and Texas at home in two weeks.
• No. 2 Oregon has Stanford this weekend, goes to Oregon State next week and closes with the Pac-12 title game at Autzen Stadium (depending on how those first two games go).
• No. 3 Notre Dame plays Wake Forest on Saturday and travels next week to USC.
Independent of anything on the big-picture scale, which is how the teams' coaches will attempt to have their players approach these games, there are inherent dangers with those opponents.
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Travis Haney
ESPN Insider• Joined ESPN as Insider's national college football writer in April 2012
• Previously wrote for The Oklahoman and The Post and Courier
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Travis HaneyTravis Haney joined ESPN in April 2012 as Insider's national college football writer. He previously covered the University of Oklahoma Sooners for The (Oklahoma City) Oklahoman for one season, and the University of South Carolina Gamecocks for The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier for four. Additionally, Haney has contributed since 2003 to ESPN publications and projects, including ESPN The Magazine.
A native of Cleveland, Tenn., Haney's initial introduction to a college football cathedral was Neyland Stadium. He later graduated from the University of Tennessee, in 2003, and has spent time covering the Volunteers, the University of Georgia, Clemson University, and other schools. Safe to say, football, and football in the South, was injected into his bloodstream at a young age.
Haney is the author of three books -- Gamecock Glory and Gamecock Encore, which chronicled the South Carolina baseball team's run to the 2010 and 2011 national championships, and State of Disunion, a historical look at the Clemson-South Carolina football rivalry that he co-wrote with Larry Williams.
Haney resides in Charlotte, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter here.
