| satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune. |
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.
What is wrong with me?
What is wrong with them?
Notre Dame, they're yours.
The rest of the week in spleen after the jump.
| BIG TEN |
| Oh, there's more Notre Dame spleen, youbetcha. The craziest place on the internet, ND Nation, went from this in the pregame:
Okay, maybe that's too wordy. How about this zinger?
Oh, snap. If Weis returns next year-and given reports that his buyout is something absurd he just might-this will be Bruins-Nation-vs-Karl-Dorell juicy. |
Wisconsin needed two missed extra points in regulation and one in overtime to beat I-AA Cal Poly this weekend and get the Badgers to bowl eligibility... barely. Imagine the carnage if Wisconsin had taken on Virginia Tech as originally scheduled. In the aftermath of a 7-5 season that started in the top ten, the natives are restless:
Turn it into a heap of poo, apparently.
I wonder if he knew what a Rhodes Scholar was before Myron Rolle won one? |
Oh, and, yes, Michigan lost 42-7 to Ohio State. At this point the vitriol has mostly been beaten out of Michigan fans, and MGoBlog hunts down and destroys the kind of stuff that features in TWIS. But, hey, newspaper websites are full of sad little beings! Actually, Nick Sheridan wouldn't look out of place on the freshman football team at Pioneer. And, uh, Michigan scored more points this year than they did last year. They actually gained twice as many yards. |
| PAC 10 |
| Washington State won the Winner Gets To Not Be The Worst Team In Pac-10 History Bowl, leaving Washington in the dust with a flurry of... missed Washington field goal attempts. Yea, truly, the 2008 Apple Cup could not have ended any other way. But Ty Willingham is done, the 0-12 season is over, and things at Dawgman are looking up!
Um, well... someone's probably looking on the bright side?
Uh.
Guys?
!!! Step away from the keyboard, put it down, and go do something else. I beg you. Elsewhere, someone responds to the idea of Dennis Franchione reasonably, an opposing fan asks if UW fans are sure they've even got an athletic department (and is mostly agreed with!), and, we've got further justification for our TOIS pick this week:
And we're done here. Finally. Washington fans, I would like to salute you for your fine work this year. May better times follow. They pretty much have to. |
| SEC |
| It's one thing to barely escape a thunderous first half from Troy and another to completely fail to escape from Ole Miss, which we remind you is Ole Miss. (And, shockingly, is 7-4!) LSU fans are displeased. I would like to remind readers that LSU did this last year:  Now, uh, what?
(Emphasis mine.) 2007: win national championship. 2008: lose nutball quarterback and seriously consider starting a Harvard transfer. 2009: job under threat? What planet is this? Oh, it's the planet of people who can't remember anything that took place longer than three months ago. Carry on. And this guy, well:
Arrrrrgh... must... avoid... all... caps... fail! THOSE SENIORS WON YOU A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP LAST YEAR. Argh argh argh argh. If there's one thing TWIS has done for me it's clarified which fanbases are the absolute worst in terms of respect for the guys on their team when things are going poorly: Alabama and LSU. |
| BIG EAST |
|
TWIS usually restricts itself to the ridiculous overreactions of fans, but in South Florida coach Jim Leavitt's case we'll make an exception: Leavitt can dish it out (he's repeatedly made sarcastic references to Rich Rodriguez over the past year) but apparently can't take it. |
| BIG TWELVE |
| Texas Tech saw its national championship dreams go up in smoke-no, check that. Texas Tech as its national championship dreams riddled by bullets, stomped on, scalped, dismembered, put through a wood chipper, and shot into the sun by Oklahoma. And even during the brutal second quarter this is the kind of stuff you get in an open thread:
There's no meltdown here, just the occasional downer. In the aftermath people are still sunny about this year and the future. |
| ACC |
| Great title from Canespace on Miami's blowout loss to Georgia Tech:
Though the rest of the blog entry follows apace:
Can you imagine anyone saying this about Miami (Miami!!!) as recently as 2004?
Times change fast when you've a school with no money and no fanbase, I guess. |
This Week In Schadenfreude: Cue the Crying Leprechaun, Then Watch Him Explode originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:52:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
