This game came up on Sirius a couple of days ago. Don't remember the guys name, but it was whoever follows Mark Packer and Eddie George... the topic came up after the initial bowl projections came out and a rematch game was one of the "Final 4".
He basically summed up exactly how I felt about this game. He compared it to the Utah game from a few years ago and said BAMA plays for all the chips and went on to challenge anyone to actually tell him that Utah or Zero U were better teams than BAMA. The emotional letdown of not playing for it all, especially in a year where you EXPECT to be doing so, takes a bit of the edge off.
Not saying that Zero U didn't out play us that day... they did. But at the end of the day, if that game had been for all the marbles, I believe the outcome would have been different.
Dissect it any way you like, but a half a step here or a loss of focus there and a fairly well balanced match-up gets out of hand quickly.