I think that, coincidentally, the start of the football season coincided with the beginning of the struggles. I also think that the discussion is a lot more interesting when things aren't going so well. I mean, yeah, doing well is great, but everyone getting together and saying "Woo hoo" gets kind of dull after a while. Also, I noticed that after last saturday, besides the "told you so" threads, the discussion was all fairly one-sided and, again, not too exciting
I said it before, but I was a fan for as long as I've liked *watching* football (I mean, I always like NU but was never a big watcher of football until after high school), but when things started going poorly, that's when I really started getting into it. It's more fun for me to try to see if I can see what the problems are than just to sit there and say "yeah, we rock." It's cool to rock, but rolling everyone up during the season kind of makes the season boring Safe, but boring.
Anyway... I have to go.
Are you a grad student?
Interesting thought, but I have to agree that it is the start of the football season also. Plus in the nature of websites, sometimes when a website reaches a certain point of popularity, it literally snow balls.