THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, Michigan fans reach the acceptance stage

Welcome back to THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, your weekly sailboat trip through the roughest waters of the college football internet.

This feature sometimes bounces around to check in on fans of a handful of losing teams in one weekend. Other times, Michigan loses to Ohio State by the kind of score you’d expect a mediocre Big Ten basketball team to put on someone from the Horizon League, and legitimate questions abound over whether Jim Harbaugh will ever, ever beat OSU.

Let’s see how Wolverines fans took the loss.

The last time Michigan lost in Columbus, UM fans made boogeymen of the officiating crew. This time, they despaired at their own team’s hopelessness.

In fact, at MGoBlog, a Michigan fan suggests a pro-Michigan conspiracy of sorts:

Refs had our back

After watching yesterdays game 1 of 2 things is evident:

1.) The refs knew they owed Michigan a favorable disposition after screwing us to holy high hell the last 2 years in this game.

2.) They knew we had a better chance to make the playoffs.

If you don’t believe they purposefully try to influence these games, I’d say you were crazy, because as bad as they screwed us the last 2 years, they had our back yesterday. It was that obvious to me.

Personally, I’ve spent way too much time combing through mad college football fans’ message board posts in my life. Maybe you have too. I have never, ever seen a losing team’s fan be like, “The refs totally tried to help us win that game.” Raise your hand if you had Michigan in the pool for who’d be first to do that? Put your hand down. Don’t lie.

One 247Sports message board poster posits some new names for the rivalry.

Things to call it besides “The Game”

Cause let’s be honest, it’s not The Game anymore. I can’t even call it the biggest rivalry in college football with a straight face anymore because of how badly OSU owns us. So what else can we call it?

The Michigan is OSU’s bitch bowl?

How to own Michigan for 2 decades bowl?

Instead of The Game, someone suggests ...

Or, The Maim

... and alternatively:

The shame

Defeatism was a common thread.

We Are Ohio States Bitch

And the sooner we all accept it the better. Michigan has been for almost 2 decades now, and is the gap closing any. This was suppose to be our best chance of beating them in how long? Yet they are giving us yet another brutal beating. I don’t see us beating them as long as Urban Meyer is their coach and Harbaugh is our coach.

In the comments section at Maize n Brew, someone pulled out this painful card:

I will always root for Michigan

But this is no longer a rivalry. It’s an annual beating

Michigan’s basically Virginia at this point.

OK, that’s a joke among friends, but only sort of. Michigan has more in common with UVA right now than anyone in blue would probably want to admit.

What’s wrong with Michigan? Here are two ideas in one post — one having to do with geography, the other with the male anatomy.

What all Michigan teams college and pro have in common.

The one thing that i see across the board of all teams in state of Michigan college or pro is lack of development and the inability to win the high stress big games.

Detroit Tigers had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and one of the highest paid teams in baseball but couldn’t win a WS their minor league system is one of the worst in developing major league ready players, the lions well the lions are the lions one of the worst franchises in nfl history can’t develope players at all and have no heart in big games. Red wings are prob the best sports franchises in detroit. The Pistons won a few titles but for the most part suck at player developement and haven’t won anything in a decade or more.

The wolverines football fails year in and year out at winning the big game. Michigan basketball great at development not so good at winning the NC title game.

All that being said I wish we had the type of coaching that exudes and pushes perfection and the testicular fortitude to win the big games. This has been an aweful dark period in Michigan sports with very little light at the end of the tunnel.

I added a few paragraph breaks again. But just know that these things tend to be written in large blocks of text that smack you in the face like DENSE BRICKS OF TRUTH.

This hashtag was moving more than it has ever moved before.

Michigan will not fire Harbaugh, but because math’s fun, let’s pull out our calculator and — yeah, doing that would cost $17 million, which is only about 1.2 Petrinos.

The most essential phase of a good post-loss meltdown comes when fans start scolding each other for how mad they are that their mutual favorite team lost. And Michigan fans were in fine form.

If this post could somehow be liquified, Ohio State fans would inject themselves with it. I’m adding some paragraph breaks for your perusing’s sake:

Just Move On.

With fans like ours it’s surprising anyone good wants to play for us (players or coaches). Yeah, the loss at ND was annoying and this loss at OSU was very disappointing. It is, afterall, a game. Get over it and just move on. Sick of all the pathetic pissing/whining on these sites anytime our team struggles.

Just like sometimes teams like OSU get blown out by teams like Purdue, this happens to our team too. Our team had a great year, lost to 2 elite teams in tough away matchups, and we have a great team with great coaches. We just don’t yet have an elite team. I’m proud of what this team did this year and hope they get to go to a really nice bowl game. Chin up, we’re in a far better spot than we were just a few short years ago.

Any Nebraska fan will tell you how devastating it is to completely change your football team’s entire identity. Sadly, we had to do it twice in a decade. We don’t need new coaches or new schemes, just stay the course and support what we have, because what we have is great (just not yet elite). Later.

That led to this bit of Dictionary.com lawyering right below it:

Do you know that the word “fan” is the root the word “fanatic”? By nature, anyone who is a “fan” is a “fanatic”. So the word itself isnt condusive to rational , even keeled behavior. Maybe you should call yourself a less abrasive word, like “football friend”, “team rooter” or “snuggle bunny”, or even “care bear”, idk, those prob arent the best words, but to call out “fans” for being crazy, intense, emotional, reactionary, etc...well, that’s literally what a “fan” is...here, hope this help with your sematically challenged post:

fanatic noun

fa·?nat·?ic | \f?-’na-tik \

plural fanatics

Definition of fanatic (Entry 1 of 2)

1 disapproving : a person exhibiting excessive enthusiasm and intense uncritical devotion toward some controversial matter (as in religion or politics)

a religious fanatic [=extremist]

The fanatics are convinced they are serving a righteous cause and that all means are justified …

— Flora Lewis

2 : a person who is extremely enthusiastic about and devoted to some interest or activity

This diagnoses it pretty well:

Here’s another thread by some a-hole using the dejection of other fans to pump himself up. We couldn’t care less how “proud” YOU (or anyone else) are of this team. BTW, F*ck you.

Another UM fan has a similar suggestion, though:

Pick a new team

Nobody forces you to root for these guys move on if you want. I believe OSU had a great scheme and we didn’t its life. I’m still a UM fan.

To which another replies:

We just got plastered my our arch rival, had our playoff dreams crushed and have to endure another year of gloating by OSU fans. And you’re posting this thread an hour after the end of the game where people’s emotions are still sky high. But yeah, why aren’t we all more cheerful and positive?

Yeah. Why aren’t Michigan fans happy right now?