2008 retrospective relegated to the archives

Every summer my wife and kids head up to Minnesota to spend a couple of weeks with the grandparents. I generally use the extra time to upgrade the drive charts or do some other bloggy projects. I also often end up watching some movies or shows that I'd wanted to see but hadn't had the time for earlier. So on Sunday, after finishing all of the 2008 retrospective posts, I watched Hancock.

For those of you who haven't seen it (yeah, I may have been the only one), it's basically about an everyday sort of superhero with public relations problem. As part of the process of rehabbing his image, he voluntarily goes to prison for the collateral havoc his rescues have created. In prison, he attends group therapy sessions, but through several quick scenes, it becomes obvious that his participation in such sessions most often consisted of him saying, "Pass." He did end up "sharing," by saying, "Name's Hanock, and I drink and stuff."

Where am I going with this? Well, group therapy's not for everyone. To be honest, I don't much care for it myself. On one hand, everyone would certainly like to forget the 2008 season and just get on with 2009 already.

On the other, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. There are other benefits of poking around at a corpse as well, including determining the cause of death and gaining fresh perspective. For instance, I'd forgotten how much Trooper Taylor wanted to be our offensive coordinator. How would the season have played out if he was given the job? Why didn't Fulmer really even consider him? Was it because of the failed Randy Sanders Experiment? How much was Fulmer influenced by the memory of the crowd chanting "Fire Sanders" in front of his wife and kids toward the end of 2005? And we'll rediscover today or tomorrow that elite QB recruit Josh Nunes was turned off Tennessee at least in part because of the boos aimed at Jonathan Crompton last year. I wonder, to what degree are fans responsible for their team's successes and failure?

I don't know the answer to that, and a full autopsy won't completely answer it, either. But it may provide some clues, and it may lead to some other self-discovery as well.

But inquests are nasty, stinky things, and I can't blame anyone for simply saying, "Pass." So, the remainder of the 2008 retrospective series will be published over the rest of the week for any who might interested, but they will bypass the front page and go straight to the archives for those who'd rather not be reminded. I always wondered why this was an option, and now I know. Yay once again for the SB Nation tech team!

Anyway, two new ones went up today:

• On finding who we are: Tennessee 35, UAB 3
• Punt coverage and red zone allergies: Florida 30, Tennessee 6

Hi, my name's 2008, and I sucked and stuff last year.