Thursday, December 7, 2017

Emptying the Notebook

If you aren't listening to the Taken All Wrong Podcast, you should be. (Available at https://soundcloud.com/taken-all-wrong and on iTunes or your favorite podcast player.)

Last night while recording, I mentioned that I've tried several times over the last couple of weeks to write some #content for this website so that we could get our hands on somea dem sweet sweet #hitz. But due to depression over the ending of the Gopher football season (I'll leave it to you to guess the reason for the depression), I haven't been able to come up with anything that I felt was of value.

So today, I'm going to do a bit of a "notebook dump," if you will. Here now, are partial blog posts that I've tried to write over the previous couple of weeks that turned into... well, they have now turned into this blog post.


This one may have been called something like "Roller Coaster Year" or sumsuch:

I consider a “football year” to start in March, with spring practices and scrimmages, and end in February with the traditional national signing day. [Editor's Note: I'm not sure I stand by this calendar timing exactly, but this is what I came up with.] 
In that sense, one of the things that is weird about being a Gopher football fan is the roller-coaster of emotions that generally accompany the year. 
March begins with hope. Early enrollees are participating in their first practices, injured players from the previous season begin to return to the field, and position battles begin to take place. 
Mid-April through July tend to be quieter times, at least for the fans. While recruiting is always taking place, and the Gophers are hosting potential recruits at camps, for fans, especially in Minnesota, this is the best time of the year from a weather perspective...

I think my intention there was to end up with something about the high of the beginning of the season and then the low of the season ending. And that low could be for myriad reasons. In a great season, it's a low because you don't want it to end. In a bad season (see: 2017), it's a low because it ended with a wimper.

Next up, I took a stab at a couple of song parodies that I wasn't pleased with. But now, through the magic of the internet, you get to see where I went horribly, horribly wrong.

Sung to the tune of "Lowdown" by Boz Scaggs, I give to you "2019 Countdown."

Thought that things had run aground
Just a huge dark cloud
Fleck’s been taking so much heat
From the vocal crowd
Sayin' this is the same old hat
“He should just get bent”
I swear he must believe
We’re a bunch of malcontents
Oh boy
But then the Huskers came around
And despite our youth
2019 Countdown
  
Oooh oooh
I wonder if those folks are feeling bluuuuee
Their anger is falling flat
Oooh oooh
The hot takes are now growing mildeeewww
Is Fleck our panacea?

Haven’t seen a scandal
Nothin' in earshot
The Wide Receiver coach is able
To get production from the slot
Penalties are out of sight
No targeting is blessed
Sure the losses are lame
But trust the process
Hey son
He’s going to turn things around
We’re starting to see the truth
2019 Countdown

Oooh oooh
I get excited about recruits that he pursuuuues
Put those negative thoughts to bed
Oooh oooh
Recruiting in 2016 just blew

Yeah
He’s gonna get this thing done
Dig that Twenty Nineteen Count Countdowwwwn

You ain't got to be so mad
If I may be so bold
You should be a part of the changes
Would love to keep you in the fold...

I love "Lowdown," but I just couldn't find a rhythm with this one. I think it took me about a week to get as far as I did and then I just scrapped it after the Northwestern loss.

Next, I tried to tackle my depression and just ended up getting more depressed. So join me, won't you?

You may have noticed that we haven’t been pumping out much content here at still got hope dot com in the last couple of weeks. WC Jack did a pretty sweet power rankings of the B1G conference for men’s basketball (Incidentally, go ahead and look at those rankings and then take a look at the conference results over the last 5 days. Dude is some kind of Big Ten Basketball soothsayer.), but other than that, crickets.

Truth is, we’re kind of depressed around here.

The Gophers season really couldn’t have ended any worse. The glimmer of hope that was the Nebraska game being followed by two games so soul crushing that having the season actually come to a close felt merciful.

We’ve preached a lot around here about taking the long view with Gopher football. Short term results when it comes to coaching changes are rarely accurate. 

And lastly, I took on WAY more than I could chew when I tried to tackle a parody of Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothin'." I'm told Kanye is some kind of lyrical genius. I've also been told that if you can't explain something simply you don't understand it well enough. Somewhere between those sentiments was me struggling with trying to figure out how to work this song parody around the phrase "la la la laaa, Wait til Fleck get recruiting right..." As you'll see, I failed quickly and spectacularly.

La La La La
Wait 'til Fleck gets recruiting right
 I had a dream about a Tight End named Brevyn
Along with a line full of guys who are neckless
I told Fleck that we want the bacon
We all hated recruiting that looked feckless
To whom much is given, much is tested
Coach Fleck is here pushing out his message
He feels the pressure, he’s under such scrutiny
No more players acting so stupidly
No tomfoolery, stick to school ya see
Learn to be a better interviewee
 La La La La
Wait 'til Fleck gets recruiting right

And with that... Here's to better times ahead!

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