“we got beat by better teams”
“It was also a bummer to be missing our best offensive player and our best defensive player.”
“I’m not sure it would’ve mattered but it did suck as a fan.”

There is zero excuse in there. It did suck to miss our two best players. Nothing wrong with saying that. In my OP, I mentioned that teams playing in bowl games are often not true representations of the team from the regular season. Yeah, when you have high level guys skipping the game, your team won’t be as good. And yes, it sucks for every team that goes through that, including Penn State and Ohio State from the year before.