This Year In Schadenfreude

scha·den·freu·de /???dn?fr??d?/
–noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

[Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

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's been a bang-up year in the laugh-at-your rivals department. As a fan, there's nothing more painful than seeing your team's shot at the ever-elusive mythical national championship go out the window because you can't beat some pissant like Stanford or Arkansas or Oregon State or Appalachian State or ... well ... not Oklahoma. But still. There was a large swath of the season in which unranked teams had a winning record over the #2 team. The most enormous upset in college football history was topped, then topped again* within a month of Appalachian State's blocked field goal.

And we tried to cover it all at the Fanhouse, at least after the two week period at the beginning of the season during which I huddled on the floor and tried really hard not to die. In the interregnum between the season and the bowls, then, let's review the year in pointing and laughing. Because the Motor City Bowl just isn't that interesting. After the jump: This Year in Schadenfreude.

*(in point spread terms, at least)

MOST OUTLANDISH EXPECTATIONS

For: the message boarder, commenter, or blogger with the most preposterously disconnected sense of his team's place in the heirarchy of college football.

You're Vanderbilt. The last time you had a winning record was 1982. In the past ten years your team has a cumulative record of 30-83, good for 113th of 119 eligible teams over at Stassen. This year you're 5-6 and attempting to lock down the unjustifiable bowl bid to end all unjustifiable bowl bids against a pretty good Wake Forest team. You lose in fairly ugly fashion, but without your starting quarterback.

Is this your reaction?

OUTRAGE
Commodore Nation should be incensed right now. We didn't just get beat by Wake Forest, we got destroyed.

Did you post a "should Bobby Johnson be fired" poll? Or declare this season -- the team's second-best since 1999 -- "a huge disappointment from the start"?

No? Well, then, that's why you didn't win this award and the Vanderbilt Sports Line did.

TEAM SCHADENFREUDE

For the team that brought opposing fans the most joy this year. Roughly measured by frequency of appearances with special consideration for "Tears of Infinite Sadness" victories.

This was a tight one. Michigan entered the year with national championship hopes, then promptly lost to a I-AA team. They were then blown out of the water by Oregon and lost to to their primary rival for the sixth time in seven years. They're scheduled to be demolished on New Year's Day in one of the most lopsided bowl matchups of the year. In any normal year, they would be runaway winners in this category.

But -- as anyone commentator even vaguely associated with college football will tell you -- this was no normal year in college football. Michigan's week three opponent, Notre Dame, rolled into town with a record as shiny and winless as Michigan. The table was set for a pillow fight of epic proportions. The result:

Michigan was a national laughingstock for two weeks at the beginning of the season and a month and a half at the end of it; an eight-game win streak in between kind of put a damper on things. There was no such solace for 3-9 Notre Dame, whose only victories came against Stanford, Duke, and UCLA's third-string walkon quarterback and his five turnovers. Super Genius Charlie Weis turned in the nation's worst offense, and then he did this:

All the while Notre Dame fans had a hilarious internal debate as to whether Charlie was permanently retarded or just, like, temporarily retarded.

Amazingly, Michigan could have pulled this out at the last second if their coaching hire went as badly as it looked like the search process was going. The initiation of the Brady Hoke era or, even more insane, the appointment of Ron English as an interim head coach would have signaled a death knell for Michigan football in the short term. But then they hired Rich Rodriguez, which is awesome.

PONTIAC PROGRAM-CHANGING SCHADENFREUDE OF THE YEAR

For the most generally humiliating moment suffered.

Though Michigan narrowly escaped ignominious victory in the last category, there is no freakin' way they weasel out of this one.

This is the moment:

And this is the very essence of schadenfreude captured on film:

Sigh. Have I mentioned we hired Rich Rodriguez?

THE SCHADENFREUDE-MAN

For the player, coach, or other figure tangentially connected to college football who brings the most joy to opponents. Reggie Ball would have run this four years running.

Bobby Petrino took off for the worst idea ever -- Vick-free Atlanta Falcons head coaching -- but left behind Brian Brohm, Mario Urrutia, and the rest of a high powered offense that had seen the Cardinals surge into national championship contention. In came Steve Kragthorpe from Tulsa, and off came the wheels.

First, there was the ominous Middle Tennessee game, in which the Cardinals gave up 42 points but managed to win. This "winning" did not so much happen against Kentucky, prompting this:

Kragthorpe

He doesnt know what hes doing. He doesnt know how to prepare against the big teams. Way too many of the same mistakes. I never thought Id say this but...I miss Petrino

by GoCards5 on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 02:15:18 AM EDT

Which is sort of like a 'Bama fan saying "I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Bear Bryant," but whatever. So it was bad. Then they lost to Syracuse. Result? Impossibly Emo Song Lyrics!

I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

Card Chronicle decided to switch up its mojo by instituting "Go Cards Baby" midway through the season. UL managed a win, but then lost to Utah 27-21. Result? Go Cards Baby abdication!

I'm dragging myself away from the computer now before I ramble on for pages (like I always do, hehe), but before I go I'd just like to assure you that it's not me, it's you. I'd rather date one of the Federline babies than serve as the sacrificial mojo for the Cincinnati game.

Please don't write or try to contact me in any way ever again.

By the end of the year we were all wondering if someone could really get fired after one year, feeling bad for Brian Brohm, and generally having a laugh at the expense of one caveman-named coach.

MOST EMO POST OF THE YEAR

For the post, be it blog or message board, that reminds you the most of this.

USC fans have had it good the past few years. And by good we mean "Scarlett Johannsson riding a unicorn wearing bacon lingerie" good. As long as we make it clear that it's Johannson in the bacon lingerie, not the unicorn. Ew.

Anyway, they still have it good, as for the fifty-sixth consecutive year they have won the Pac-10 and will go to the Rose Bowl, where they'll face a third-place Big Ten team they'll crush by 100 points. But earlier in the year, the #1 team in all the land, a juggernaut of expectation, ran up against a raggedy Stanford team starting their backup quarterback, a man named Tavita Pritchard. Johnathan Tu described Pritchard like so:

... an earnest young lesbian ceramics associate professor yearning to set the world of cutting edge pottery on fire. And I do not mean that Tavita Pritchard sounds like a lesbian who teaches ceramics; I mean that Tavita Pritchard is the kind of name you'd associate with someone who teaches the art of lesbian ceramics, probably at your local community college but there's always that opening at Santa Cruz.

So ... losing to this person is not so good. Tu, in the aftermath, had all sharp objects forcibly removed from his presence:

Someone just ran over my puppy
His name is Jim Harbaugh. Not my puppy. My puppy is named Bonestorm. Jim Harbaugh ran over Bonestorm, the greatest puppy in the history of college football.

I think I might just drive straight back to California tomorrow and eat In 'n Out until I don't feel feelings anymore. Everything is dark and hopeless and devoid of meaning. I want a chocolate vanilla milkshake very badly right now. And two sausage McMuffin with egg sandwiches for two dollars. And heroin.

And his team ended up going to the Rose Bowl!

BEST AND MOST TRAITOROUS DECISION TO TAPE YOUR CRAZY FRIEND AND STICK IT ON YOUTUBE

Word.

Friends, they have no mercy.

MOST LIKELY TO ACQUIRE RESTRAINING ORDER

For the blogger or message board poster with the most crippling obsession with hating his coach.

Can this go to anyone other than Bruins Nation? No. No, it cannot. BN's campaign against Karl Dorrell has been relentless and, finally, successful. As UCLA flailed its way to another .500-ish season, managing losses to Utah and Notre Dame along the way, BN slowly lost what little sanity it entered the year with. Typical slice of rhetoric:

There is not much else to say about this clown and his overpaid joker assistants. At this point of time we just cannot take these clowns seriously. These people are either bold faced liars or seasoned con artists who are ripping UCLA of millions of dollars.

Again if these clowns had any sense of dignity and integrity they would submit their mass resignations these week instead of passing the buck and making weak, pathetic shameful excuses.

When it became clear that Dorrell's tenure was coming to a close, BN turned its guns on a potential Dorrellian successor:

Walker needs to be exposed for what he is: an average assistant coach at best, who in the eyes of some desperate UCLA fans, who are willing to settle for anything to get rid of Dorrell, is a credible candidate for UCLA's next football coach.

Last night's game should end those stupid wishes.

I hope this is an Ed Wood "your stupid, stupid minds!" callback but kind of doubt it.

BEST USE OF EXCESSIVE CURSING

For the best &#*@ing post of the year.

There are two strong contenders here. A sanitized excerpt from the first, posted by Orson Swindle on EDSBS after Florida got stomped by Knowshon Moreno and Georgia:

Knowshon Moreno? [so far so good -ed] #$*&. Damn. God *#$@ing dammit. God #$*S#@*iing dammit. Holy #$&#$!$%*ing piss-#$*#$ing #$*(@#$*ing bull&*#$ $#%&#*@. Just $&#*ing god&*@ pisswad #$*#$ing Cleveland steamer *#$&!ing !&!$%-*#@ &*#$ing #*$&#*$&#ing #*#@head hellassed #$&!storm goddamn *#$%#@& #$&*wallah @#&*headed rectumweeping @!#$%*&ing #*&@master!

That is a lot of humorous cartoon substitution, my friends, and the original goes on and on and on afterwards. But though this post has a higher density of cursing than any other, it lacks a certain something. And that something is deep-seated anger. Orson's really going for comic effect here.

Our other contender is Notre Dame blogger "Jay" from Blue Gray Sky, who understandably kind of lost his mind after the Navy game:

You stupid goddam idiot. I'm talking to you, #&*$head. You just cost us a chance to win the game. Where did you learn your trade, you stupid goddam idiot. You Bob-Davie-versus-Nebraska mother#*$er. What you are hired to do is to help us win. Not to #*@! US UP.

Less frequency, way more genuine frothing anger: winner.

"WOW... JUST WOW" OF THE YEAR

I probably owe Ryan Ferguson my first-born, as he brought this baby to my attention in the aftermath of the Iron Bowl:

i want to thank Saban for destroying my family.

My sons grandparents are auburn fans and we visit them only at deaths in the family. Well we Lost a 41 year old Auburn fan and preacher on Nov 11 2007. So we got together for the Funeral.the first time in two years because we are Bama fans. They ask us to come to their home for Christmas so we can help with the lost of their youngest son.

we agreed when we left their house my sons one is 24 one is 16 said if Auburn beats Alabama they never wanted to see them again. Guess what we lost and thanks to the sorry backs and Quarterback we have and the 4 million dollar coach we lost our family for good.

Thanks for destroying our hope our faith and family and the youth of Alabama's hopes forever. My 24 year old was going to transfer. this year if Bama Won but who wishes to play with a bunch of loser like the ones that take the field in Alabama,

Again: wow, just wow. Some things just can't be commented upon adequately.