On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Oh, West Virginia. It's not like anyone expected Bill Stewart to be anything other than the second coming of Larry Coker, but even Larry Coker couldn't screw up the talent he was handed in his first year. WVU is now 7-4 after a loss to Pitt, and this week all you need are the titles of threads posted with whole words in caps with multiple exclamation points on WVU's Scout message board:
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Despite the author's proclivities, TWIS tries to remain balanced in its coverage of the misery inflicted on fans by the teams they love, and attempts to avoid spotlighting one team too heavily before the jump. The Tears of Unfathomable Sadness try to move around.
But, well... it's Notre Dame again, and with good reason. Notre Dame needed a win to get sucked up into the Gator or Cotton Bowls where they would be beaten into oblivion by someone like Texas Tech. Instead, they lose to a 2-8 team with a fired coach. Afterwards, David Bruton cries like a baby and even I, Michigan fan extraordinaire, feel sorry for the guy.
In the aftermath, people go on toaster-throwing fits of rage :
I want to pound my fingers through someone's skull, but I don't know whose. I want to break something, but I don't know what. I want to break into someone's home and take a dump in an inappropriate place, but I don't know whose house and whether to lay chocolate sausage in their fireplace or on their kitchen counter.
The Tears belong to whichever fanbase provides the most vicious burst of rage in the aftermath of humiliating defeat (and, every once in a while, humiliating victory). And, uh... yeah...
This season, I have attempted the following:
Exercised feverishly, gone for a run and done push-ups. Result: short-term release, rest of weekend still ruined.
Put on some Indigo Girls and ironed shirts. Result: even more angry and now slightly gender-confused
Kicked a laundry basket down stairs and punched some pillows. Result: short-term release, and the futile sight of a laundry basket rolling down stairs just saddening.
Slapped the hell out of a wall and pounded my foot. Result: A strange awakening to my own insanity. Appendage throbbing.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
I don't think a winning team has ever pulled down the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award, but we have history this week. LSU fell behind against the Troy Trojans of Troy (We're From Troy!) 31-3, causing a mass exodus from Death Valley and a trulyepicmessageboardwar. This is the nuclear bomb:
At this point LSU fans just need to STFU. We are largely irrelevant, living off past glory, full of self-congratulatory bluster. Even now, some tard (sorry PJ) is on my radio talking about Nick Saban. Saban ? We don't believe in our team, we don't believe in our coaches, it's not important to us anymore to even stay at the stadium. We have made second-guessing an art form and have a juvenile view of reality. We bitched our way through a National Freaking Championship and now we are sniveling through a 9/10 win season. THAT IS WHO WE ARE. Snivelers. Whiners. Crybabies. With a ridiculous sense of entitlement.
I'm not blaming us or even asking for change, I'm just acknowleding the Truth.
Uh. Wow. And then you've got the first response:
It was either leave or kill the wife to stop the whining and there were too many witnesses to do the right thing.
Yes, what they say about LSU fans is true: they smell like corndogs and are complete lunatics. (Just kidding LSU fans! Please don't dip me in batter and fry me!) The rest of the week in spleen after the jump.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Notre Dame fans were okay-ish with a loss to Michigan State and upset but understanding after coin flips with North Carolina and Pitt that went against them. A 17-0 blanking by Boston College in which the Decided Schematic Advantage(tm) racked up under 300 yards of offense and turned the ball over five times? Eh, not so much:
I now consider us a Div II program by FLBOB73(11/08/2008 23:12:46)
...I truly believe that Navy will have their own streak begin with their second win in a row. We will lose to USC and others. Maybe we can beat Syracuse, but I'm not even sure we can reach bowl eligibility at this point. I am sick in my heart. Don't talk to me about next year, don't talk to me about learning curves and the talent that's coming. Bulls---. We're medicore and we're coached like a high school team. We play without emotion, without a plan and without any determination. We talk trash and that's it. ...
Elsewhere, Domers are offering up youtube clips of "The End" for Weis. In the eyes of the faithful, it's over: Notre Dame is dominated with discussions about the new coach. (One particularly outstanding suggestion: bring in Holtz for one year. Please let this happen.) Newly D-II Notre Dame, you are the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award recipient.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Expectations got a little out of hand for BYU when they throttled a UCLA team that had just beaten Tennessee with its eighth string quarterback. It would soon turn out that both UCLA and Tennessee were pretty awful, but by that point BYU was floating in the top ten. No more. The Cougars got stomped by TCU, prompting one Mormon on a mission (HA!) to ask a simple question:
POLL: Do you hate Bronco Mendenhall?
Okay, that might have been tongue in cheek. This, however, is... um:
Subject: Bronco is a communist!
... If a player is gifted at something you should be tailoring plays that allow him to use those gifts. Hiding talents in a system is not the way to go, just ask the communists.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
It was sort of like The Horror last year: Michigan takes on a ridiculously overmatched opponent, finds itself trailing late, gets a last-second chip-shot field goal to redeem themselves, and blows it. Also bloggers started posting mushroom clouds.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Last year, USC lost to Stanford. This was an extremely creative way to obliterate their shot at the national championship. This year they did one better, though, losing to a team that was soundly beaten by Stanford and causing Arizona State blog Pitchfork Nation to issue a special edition of their Pac 10 Power Poll in WAR-sized caps:
NO ONE. NO ONE IN THIS CONFERENCE IS POWERFUL. AT ALL.
I'm just stunned. I can't believe it. I really can't. I don't care if we go on to win 10 national championships, Pete Carroll will forever be remembered for losing two games to horrible teams. It's like losing to Sacramento St. and Humboldt. Damn.
No, Pete Carroll will forever be remembered for naked grunting samoan guys, and then probably the national championships. And then probably his fabulous hair. Only if you are literally in the room with Mike Riley and Jim Harbaugh will USC's weird upsets get brought up. Congratulations, USC, you are the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award recipient.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
This column tries to vary the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award recipient in order to not pick on any one unsuccessful team unduly, but... uh...
We ain't gonna make it when West Virginia fans throw up a video featuring a dozen photoshops of a paint-wielding, Gomer Pyle tee-wearing Bill Stewart and a YTMND that asks HOW DO I TIMEOUT. (HT: EDSBS.) West Virginia, mountain momma, take it home.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
The Bill Stewart era came crashing down in its first game against a I-A opponent in a shockingly uncompetitive loss to ECU, and West Virginia message boards descended into the sort of post-apocalyptic war you might expect. My favorite bit of fallout was one bright and bushy fellow asking if there "were any positives at all in this game" and getting the following responses, all consecutive:
The only positive out of this game is that it is over.
West Virginia, your tears are so yummy and sweet. You are this weeks Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award winner. The rest of the week in spleen after the jump.
On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.
Welcome to the 2008 season, unless you're the ACC, in which case welcome to twelve months before the 2009 season. Picking a winner for this year's first Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award -- given to the team whose ineptness causes the most spittle-flecked, veiny, red-faced reaction -- was touring the wrecked national championship hopes of said conference.
East Carolina may be a far less respectable foe to lose to, but the fashion in which Clemson took the pipe was ignominious and only unexpected because usually Tommy Bowden lets everyone get their hopes up before imploding spectacularly. Naturally, Clemson fans want to kibosh one of college football's keystone traditions:
Congratulations, Clemson! Your tears are so yummy and sweet. If you can't win on the field you can at least win on the FanHouse.
More from the week in abbreviated honeymoons after the jump.
scha·den·freu·de –noun 
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