Naming Convention for 2008 Season
One day, historians will surely have a label for the year that was the 2008 Michigan Football Experience. We're going to need one too. Since we're going to be comparing this season repeatedly to the previous one (and in ways that signify tremendous improvement!), we need a shorthand.
Since Brian refers to the 2005 season as the Year of Infinite Pain, what do we call last season?
• Year of Truly Infinite Pain?
• Year of Infinite Bitching?
• Year Which Must Not Be Named?
• Countdown to TateStock / Denard-a-thon?
• Year Without Completions?
• Year of Many Fumbles?
• The Shafer Interregnum?
Any thoughts?
How about:
THE PURGE.
Michigan purged itself of multiple players who didn't buy in, of the old Big Ten offensive scheme, of most of the coaching staff, of many of its bandwagon fans, and of all those pesky consecutive bowl appearances.
You've been spending too much time over at the WLA treefort site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
COMMUNISM ISN'T FUNNY
Um...sorry? Never mind? I honestly wasn't trying to start anything contentious.
THE HUMBLING
I like this one. It's simple, and straight to the point. I think last season showed all of us that even Michigan isn't immune to a bad season. I for one will stop taking 8+ wins/season for granted... for a while at least.
I would suggest either "The Great Leap Forward" or "The Cultural Revolution"
[Great Leap Forward]
Key Takeaway: A great [football] plan which aimed to use [Michigan football's] vast resources to rapidly transform [Michigan] from a primarily agrarian economy by peasant farmers into a modern [football team] through the process of [implementing the spread offense]. It ended in catastrophe as it triggered a widespread famine that resulted in millions of deaths.
[Cultural Revolution]
Key Takeaway: A period of widespread social and political upheaval... resulting in nation-wide chaos and economic disarray.
Damn, the great leap forward was my idea. I think it's brilliant.
I'd like to think our guy in charge is slightly more competent at his job than Chairman Mao was.
Mao was competent according to his set of ideals... the real problem was that he mad (in the power sense).
Mao was pretty evil, but he was also almost laughably incompetent. Mao left China much, much poorer, much more overpopulated, and much more environmentally-degraded (huge portions of northern China became desertified because of his clueless agricultural policies) than it was when he inherited it. In no way did he plan this. If China had continued to follow Mao's policies to this day, it would be another North Korea.
how Michigan Fans with brown eyes are once again seeing blue.
How about the year I was very very drunk?
The Year of Infinite Bingeing?
I say we call it by the teams we beat "Miami Wiscosota"
I suggest "The Quickening". Has a nice double entendre to it.
didn't someone call it 'the year of infinite sorrow'? i feel that that is appropriate
I like that. Simple and catchy, not too hard to explain.
Both Humbling & Year of Infinite Sorrow work for me.
Year Which Must Not Be Named. It sums it up.
The Year of Repeated Blunt Force Trauma
Tears of sorrow
"An interregnum is a period of discontinuity of a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next."
Since the Glorious Revolution begins this year, this title seems perfect.
The Year of DEATH!!!
...Is catchy but probably too harsh. "The Interregnum" works for me. Or a more modern term: "The Reboot".
...Is catchy but probably too harsh. "The Interregnum" works for me. Or a more modern term: "The Reboot".
The Title song from U2's 2nd Album. For the season that couldn't end fast enough...
How about just _________? That's nine spaces representing the nine losses we never want to hear about again.
THE BLOODENING
I offered "The Year of Transmogrification" for this past season, "The Year of Transfiguration" for this upcoming season, and (hopefully) 2010 is "The Year of Resurrection". Or just call it "2009: When Ninjas Attack".
Or just the Year of the Keyboard Cat for short.
"Year of infinite _____" (anything) just doesn't sound right - due to the juxtaposition of two incompatable measurements (year and infinite). Of course they are not really incompatible, one is time and the other is extent, but it just sounds illogical.
I like "revolution" somewhere in the title - most revolutions begin long before they are apparent, long before any major change, and most are hard fought. But we don't know if they were an actual revolution until they are won. One could say that the change process began right after app state, and that in 2008 the revolution wasn't won yet. With the seemingly full installation of his system in 2009, the revolution is over (we hope).
"The Rodriguez Revolution" sounds good for the whole change (up to 2008 and beyond), but to encapsulate just 2008 needs some qualifier.
Interregnum does work - a period between two regimes. RR might have been in charge in 2008, but he didn't have his regime in place. More purging, more learning, and more recruitment of his type of soldier had to be done.
Could be "Interregnum to a Revolution" or "Interregnum to the Rodriguez Revolution" or something similar.
Because, as our MSU "friends" who now think MSU is a superior program will soon find out, that's all last year really was.
But in the RR world, last year went as expected, not an aberration. WHich means this year will be much much much better.
Year Of The Trial Sized Dove Bar
[DFW rip off]
You beat me to it, although I was leaning toward the Year of The Depends Adult Undergarment.
The Michigan Chainsaw Massacre! (without chainsaws!)
The Year of Infinite Munging.
Infinite Munging sounds like a nightmare.
oh.....right.....I think you win.
I can't f---in believe Sheridan is in the f---in game again.
This is actually my favorite thus far.
That is what I will always remember it as.
I think I'll borrow from South Park and Brian's weekly column during the season and offer:
The Year of Unfathomable Sadness
Requiem for a Team