Drive-by Posting: Definitions
- OMGWTF [ohm-gah whut-fah]
- - interjection
1. A phrase used to express a co-mingled state of alarm, dismay, and incomprehension regarding a situation which has not just unexpectly crashed, but has unexpectedly crashed, burned, killed Bambi's mother on impact, turned her carcass into ground meat, and then given the people who ate that meat Shigella food poisoning.
2. College Football final score: September 1st, 2007: Appalachian State College 34 - University of Michigan 32
For those of you not as familiar with American College Football, that college football score would be the same as if the University of Maryland (College Park) men's soccer (football) team defeated Brazil.
I mean, U. Maryland was the best men's college soccer team in the whole United States in 2005, so they don't precisely suck. But the Brazil national soccer team is the most successful soccer team in history. I mean, seriously. Brazil.
There are 117 college football teams in America's College Football Division I-A. These range from schools that haven't had a winning season in decades (for example, Duke or Vanderbilt) to the most successful American college football team of all time -- which happens to be the University of Michigan. Appalachian State isn't even *in* Division I-A -- Appalachian State competes in the next lower league (Division I-AA). It might be the best team in Division I-AA; but that's like saying U. Maryland was the best soccer team among all American college football teams. That might be true, but the American NCAA soccer league is not the same thing as, oh, FIFA.
It was thus with surprise, dismay, and confusion that we found out that for some unknown reason the University of Michigan scheduled it's home game opener against Appalachian State -- a team that was officially an entire level down from U. Michigan. You can only imagine the further dismay, shock, and confusion when we managed to actually *lose* to said team. For the record, *no* Division IAA team in the entire history of American college football -- and the Wolverines have been playing American college football since the nineteenth century -- has *ever* defeated a Top-25 Division IA team. Ever. Until today. OMGWTF indeed!
This isn't just a train wreck. This is train flies off cliff, shish-kabobs a hydrogen filled blimp carrying ten thousand live chickens, and then the whole burning mess crashes into a Chernobyl-style nuclear reactor. We're talking about the kind of screwup which flings radioactive poultry bits over twelve different states.
The Yellow and the Blue, Gamedays and Geek Ladies, and Michigan Man talk a little about what all of it means to be a college football fan to me, and why. A true sports fan remains loyal through good times and bad times and "how the hell did I end up by the side of the Beltway dressed in French Maid Negligee?" times. A big part of the fun of college football is the rivalries, the kidding with each other about one's own team's successes and failures. We rib our friends when we win; and likewise and it behooves us to accept our humiliations as sports fans gracefully.
And it will be hard for *any* team to *ever* match the degree of colossal failure our Michigan Wolverines just achieved today. After all, no top-level Division IA team in the entire thirty years since football teams were divided into Division IA and IAA had ever managed to do that, until we managed to do it. Well, what can I say, but Go Blue! ;-)