This Week In The Twitterverse

Reasonable Responses to Disappointing Events

Last Wednesday was National Signing Day, which is a big day for unbalanced Twitter users everywhere. I had originally planned to dedicate this week’s entire TWIT to the scores of unstable fans who didn’t get what they wanted from Recruiting Claus. But after sifting through the charred remnants of the interweb, I opted to just share with you a small share of this Cornucopia of Derp. I’d like to leave you with at least SOME hope that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for.

Exhibit A: Vonn Bell

Bell was a five-star safety who had narrowed down his choices to Ohio State and Tennessee. Reports started filtering out on Wednesday morning that Bell would be attending Tennessee, which made it even more awkward for Vols fans when Bell subsequently chose the Buckeyes. Hilarity did NOT ensue in Knoxville.

Exhibit B: Robert Nkemdiche

Nkemdiche’s recruitment was both wild and well documented. However, by signing day most observers expected him to choose Ole Miss. So you’d think that when he DID choose Ole Miss, people would take it in stride, right? Please? Just this once?

Yeah, that wasn’t a high-probability event.

Seriously though… who are these sick people? Someone actually typed the words “Nkemdiche moms a fat walrus,” without a) noticing the glaring grammatical errors, and b) thinking “I am terrible at not being a terrible person.” We’ve all run across some players we’ve disliked on an unreasonably personal level, but for most of us spines and knees are off-limits even in the deepest recesses of our collective lizard brains. SEC, SEC, SEC.

I Believe The Children Are Our Future

We're only about six weeks into 2013, but the Creepy Tweet of the Year competition may be over before it really even began.

If you don't recognize the recipient, good for you (having a mental list of recruits' Twitter handles is one of the signs that you have a problem). It's Malik McDowell, all-everything DE from Detroit, who is rumored to be favoring Michigan and Notre Dame. The sender is a Notre Dame blogger. Remember a few months ago when Brian was complaining that there really aren't any good Notre Dame blogs? Yeah, this. It's this guy and Damefan1.

Dealer's choice as to where to focus your horrified bemusement: a blogger actively courting a recruit for a school, someone trying to get a minor to attend a certain school by promising him sex, or the rather obvious (given the language and the overwhelming whiteness of the ND student body) racial implications. I mean, I suppose there is a chance that this guy is telling McDowell that Notre Dame needs a saxophone player to back up Randy Watson. After all, what was the name of the fast-food joint in Coming to America? That's right. McDowell's:

                  Their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds.

Whew. Glad there's a reasonable and NOT COMPLETELY DEPLORABLE explanation for this message.

Fire Everyone

Michigan played some basketball this week. It did not go well. PROOF:

This was just a small sampling of the responses to the Wisconsin and MSU games. Among the ideas that I saw floated were:

• Fire Beilein
• Bench Trey Burke
• Bench everyone but Trey Burke
• NO, FOR SRS, FIRE BELEIEIN
• Deport Nik Stauskas
• Sacrifice Vogrich to the Flying Spaghetti Monster
• File war crime charges against Hardaway
• Cut GRIII
• Cut RGIII (not sure how this would help, but I suppose it’s worth a shot)
• Forfeit the season and go caddy for the Dalai Lama

There were more, but these were the most reasonable.

Former Michigan Athletes Engage in Twitter Battles

This was a big week for former Michigan athletes in social media. Desmond Howard (@DesmondHoward) kicked things off with a spat with Chadd Scott (@ChaddScott), a radio host from Jacksonville. The website Awful Announcing put together a comprehensive recap of the confrontation, but it boiled down to this:

Mr. Scott is arguing that Desmond got his spot on Gameday because of his Heisman, which is probably partly true. But was that really the "easy path"? Winning a Heisman is only an easier path when the other options are “Earn Congressional Medal of Honor,” “Win Nobel Prize,” and “defeat Contra after 11 beers.” But beyond that, how many Heisman winners have been able to parlay their win into a successful announcing career? Doug Flutie and Eddie George do some college football analysis, and Tim Brown pops up here and there, but that's about it. Besides, it’s tough to argue that ESPN doles out Gameday jobs based solely on previous success in athletics; Lee Corso was 41–68–2 as a coach at Indiana, and Kirk Herbstreit wasn’t exactly a beacon of glory at OSU.

Speaking of untenable arguments, O HAI THERE Braylon Edwards:

Braylon’s brother, Berkley Edwards, is a speedy little running back who could be described as a poor man’s Dennis Norfleet. But Michigan just moved their ACTUAL Dennis Norfleet to cornerback [/pours a little out for Brian]. So being all “OMG Michigan needed this guy” is a tough sell.  Besides, Minnesota was (probably) Edwards’ only committable BCS offer. He had an offer from Iowa pulled, and his Cal offer was on hiatus because of a coaching change. So it wasn’t as if Michigan was the only guy not courting this kid. We’ll always have Michigan State ‘04, Braylon. Now please sit down.

Finally, Wednesday brought us a less-than-civil war between Anthony Wright (@ItsAntWright) and ESPN commentator and professional quasi-troll Dan Dakich (@DanDakich). Wright started things, sort of, by tweeting “Shut up Dakich” during the Game That Never Happened But Nevertheless Pains My Soul. The next day, Dakich unleashed the fury:

There are a couple of things to notice here. First, Wright didn’t use Dakich’s Twitter handle in his tweet, and Dakich doesn’t follow Wright. So to see that tweet, Dakich had to search for his own name, which is indicative of a combination of narcissism and confrontationalism (IT’S A WORD). Second, and more interestingly, is how quickly and personally Dakich struck back. Calling someone “the biggest underachiever n the history of Michigan hoops” who “dog[ged] it thru games” is pretty harsh. But then, after some back and forth, things got downright bitchy.

Yeppers, that’s an ESPN analyst calling a former player and current high school coach fat, lazy, and illiterate. Dakich is usually pretty curt on Twitter (he tends to call people dumb), but this is a different level even for him. He’s one step away going full-on Dean Wormer. I personally think that Dakich is among the better pure analysts in college basketball 85% of the time, but he spends 10% of his time trolling as hard as one can troll. The other 5% is largely unintelligible, but seems to be about a lighthouse.