These, good gentlemen, are your candidates from the name of the year. There are four of them. That's why this post is here. I don't like having four names of the year. I posit we should have one name of the year. 

And it's on you to decide them. 

So, you're probably wondering: Northwestern's last football game was a month and 20 days ago. How come we're just voting on the best opposing football player name today?

Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, I like to do things big.  Check that. I like to attempt doing things big, then not doing them. I had two truly phenomenal (in my opinion) concepts for improving coverage of the Name of the Year. 

1. Name of the Year roundtable: I was going to get like five or six of Northwestern's greatest name debaters under one roof, turn on a mic, and let us go to work on dissecting the Name of the Year poll, PTI style, for like 25 minutes. This fell through because I'm lazy.

2. Partisan analysis: I was going to ask a blogger from the school of each nominated football player why they felt their school's nominee deserved to bring home the title. This fell through because I'm lazy and because the Auburn dudes never got back to me when I tried to interview them pre-Outback Bowl, so I figured getting them to discuss the merits of Eltoro Freeman would be a lost cause.

But, instead, in the spirit of the posts I did throughout the year, all you got is me. Things I wrote, and a buttload of it. Next year, I'm planning on integrating some of those other ideas, and maybe more, but for now, you got this.

(Oh, and for the record, I'm aware of Name of the Year, and that I'm kind of a ripoff. That being said, this was a really fun way to kill time and provided me some good posts during the year, it got us all familiar with opposing rosters, gave us somebody to root for on opposing teams, and, uh, we had fun. I'll take being unoriginal and good over being innovative and crappy any day of the week.) 

Now vote! The poll is directly below, and also at the bottom if you hit the jump. I urge you to hit the jump, cuz there's all sorts of crazy nonsense down there.

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During the bowl selection process, there are a lot of factors that a team's fan has to consider: which will be the easiest travel option? Which will bring my team the best national exposure? And most importantly, which team will my team have a good opportunity of beating?

Me, however, I had a different focus: I pored over each school's football roster, and debated the pros and cons of every team's respective best names. (Hey, gotta pass time during finals week somehow besides playing Bubble Spinner, putting up blog posts about my boy Bangs, and listening to the song "Forever" by Drake on repeat for hours at a time. And studying.) 

On decision day, the Outback Bowl pitted us with the right team: it was clear to me that Auburn was the best opponent when it came to potential name nominations. But I feel I would be remiss not to honor some of our coulda been name heroes: the University of Miami brought adorably named cornerback Ray Ray Armstrong, while Clemson had a freakin' bevy of awesome options: linebacker Quandon Christian, the two-headed Brown monster of Kourtnei and Kantrell Brown (not related!), and my personal favorite, grad student safety Sadat Chambers. 

But let us not dwell in the past. On to the Auburn War Eagles Regular Eagles Tiger-Eagles Tigers (this is going to take a while). Honorable mentions from that squad include D'Antoine Hood, Phillip Pierre-Louis (the dreaded triple-name threat)  Ralph Spry, and Travante Stallworth. 

Now, onto the nominees, after that jump!

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DUN-DUN FREAKIN DUN, PEOPLE. 

That's right. As you may remember, for the majority of the season, every week I selected the four or five best names from the team Northwestern was playing against and allowed you, the public, to select which you thought was the best name from that team. I'm not talking the best as in the funniest, I'm talking about all-around best. The most magnificient name. 

Now, with 12 weeks gone, and nothing for us to talk about, I bring you the 12 champions. The Sippin' on Purple Names of the Week. 

And again, I bring these men before you, and I ask you to determine their worth. 

Of these 12 (actually 11, we'll get to that), pick your favorite. The top three will advance to a final round of voting with the best name from our opponent in the bowl game, as I optimistically left a slot for a 13th week on my impromptu name plaque (né a sunday night dinner flyer that i took down while putting new ones up), even though at the time, we were 3-1 and 1-1 in conference. Yeah optimism.

Anyway, since that fateful day like two months ago, the plaque sifted to the bottom of my desk, but I just went through the pile, retrieved it, and updated it with the names that have won since. Here is that plaque, as pictured via my iPhone. 

Below, you see the poll. After the jump, I have the names listed in chronological order and what I wrote about those names at the time, plus a contextual line or two about how I feel about that name now. 

So today, we separate the wheat from the chaff. We separate the Lorenzo Seaberry III's of the world from the Nate Paopao's. If we never went through this stage, those Seaberry's would potentially draw votes away from the Paopao's in the final, and I hope to avoid any Naderization of the potential final result in this poll. 

Gentlemen, vote, and vote well. 

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So, first things first, congratulations to Whitney Mercilus for taking home one of the lowest-vote totals in Name of the Week history, beating Wisdom Onyebule 13-12. It's mainly cuz I posted it on thursday, but, still. Wisdom made good on his name of the week naming,  and turned in a sack, proving to me that his name is, in fact, pronounced "merciless." Which is awesome. Either way, it was a bad week in the name world for fans of wisdom, and an even worse one for fans of mercy. (Hopefully, not to many of y'all are big mercy fans anyway. In fact, the only time I am ever pro-mercy, generally, is when discussing the second single from Marvin Gaye's album What's Goin On, which is, what, top-10, top-20 albums all time, hands-down? Anybody gonna disagree with me? Good. Moving on.)

I'm sorry to say it, but Wisconsin is painfully devoid of interesting names. I could make a list of the five most interesting names (candidates include O'Brien Schofield, Elijah Theus, Coddye Ring-Noonan, and Jaevery McFadden.) But this would be doing a disservice to both them and you, the readers.

Therefore, it is my solemn and painful duty to tell you that there will be no name of the week poll. I'm preemptively awarding the regular season's final title to the owner of the far and away best name on the team, Prince Moody. 

Surely, there will be some disappointment - especially from the Prince himself, knowing how moody that poor chap is - but I hope we can all agree it's the right thing to do. I hope you respect Prince with the same veneration deserved of all name of the week winners.

Prince is a senior defensive back, but essentially only plays on special teams. He's a history major, and is academic all-Big Ten, so, dayum, Also, his cousin is Natrone Means. I hope you enjoy that information.

So here's how this is going to work: I've updated the name plaque, and next week, we'll do a 12-man name of the year run-off to decide the top four names of the year out of the teams NU has played, and those top four will advance to play whoever has the name of the week on the team we play in a bowl. Then we will decide the Name of the Year, and then I'll find a way of getting the plaque to the award-winner. So people, get ready.

So last week, Sippin on Purple saw the greatest name poll in its brief history: Pat Angerer was up 39-38 with five minutes to game time, and somebody swooped in at the 11th hour and cast a vote for Marvin McNutt, knotting the score at 39 a piece.

Well, first, off, thanks to the 104 of you who voted. I was contemplating making myself the tiebreaking 105th vote, but decided against it. Angerer and McNutt both deserve their share of the title, so, congratulations to the both of them.

Anyways, on to the U of I, here's some runners-up:  QB Juice Williams (you've heard of him), defensive lineman Sirod Williams, kicker Derek Dimke, defensive back Dere Hicks, defensive back Joelil Thrash defensive back Ashante Williams (the way to my heart: references to late-90's R&B/hip-hop acts. I performed an acoustic version of No Scrubs in front of about 100 people last week in Tech Auditorium, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And Ashante is about as close as you can get.), defensive lineman Clay Nurse (because it means something that doesn't make sense) and quarterback Sean McGushin (His birth name back in Hawaii was actually just "McGushin" but he gave himself a first name to be more normal.)

The fact that those last few were runners up are testaments to the depth of UI's names.

And now, on to the names:

#27, Antonio Gully: Antonio is, by default, the gulliest human being on the planet earth. Because his last name is gully. And Antonio is a pretty sweet first name too, not a top ten first name, but up there.

Antonio is a junior defensive back, but hasn't actually cracked the rotation outside of special teaming. 

#14, Miami Thomas: First off, Miami is from Chicago. Errrrr? In other news, if you're going to name your kid after a city, make sure it's a good one. Nobody's going to be friends with Cleveland Thomas, or Detroit Thomas, or East St. Louis Thomas. But Miami? Man, that kid's so cool. I'ma name my kid New York Sherman, and he's going to be the most popular kid in school, and school sports tv shows will focus on his sporting events way more than any other kid's sporting events, and when his teams are good, people will discuss how it's good for the league that his team is succeeding.

Miami is a cornerback. He started last year's game against NU, but hasn't played yet this year.

#16, Michael Hoomanawanui: His friends call him "Mike" for short, and "Hoomanawan" for short, also. 

Mikey Hoo is a pretty damn good tight end. Now a junior, Hoomanawanui has been starting since his freshman year. He had 25 catches for 312 yards and two scores last year, but only eight this year, but considering how bad Illinois' offense has been, it really can't be that surprising.

#96, Wisdom Onyegbule: A few weeks ago, we saw Knowledge Timmons lose in the Penn State name poll. Some were disappointed. Knowledge is an awesome first name. Well, people, if you felt slighted by Knowledge's loss, well, Wisdom's your guy. First off, very similar first name concept. Now, swap out "Timmons" with "Onyegbule", and you've got a win win. That, my friends, is wisdom.

Wisdom redshirted last year, and saw his first game action a few weeks ago against Michigan, assisting on a sack.

and my pick for the winner...

#85, Whitney Mercilus: If my name was Whitney Mercilus, I'd do two things every day: first off, I'd be angry that my name was Whitney, because that's a last name, as evidenced by Eli Whitney, and, well, anybody ever to be named Whitney. 

Then, having done that, I'd contemplate showing mercy. But would I? HELL NO. My last name would be pronounced MERCILESS. And therefore, even if all I know about humanity were to dictate that I was in a situation that deserved mercy, you can be sure as all hell that I would not. WHITNEY MERCILUS. A great football name too. Now, if middle name was "The", I would begin to worship him.

Whitney is a redshirt freshman defensive tackle who has seen a decent amount of tick, having played in eight games and recorded two sacks. 

So, yeah, hit the poll, people. More later.

Hey, yo, new layout! Hope you dudes like it, it's mad shiny and whatnot, so, obviously, I'm pleased.

Also, congratulations to Christian Kuntz, who won possibly the deepest name of the week poll thus far with 26 votes, holding off Tariq Tongue and Knowledge Timmons with their 11 and 17 votes respectively. However, Tariq and Knowledge certainly have their spots in the Lorenzo Seaberry III Living Memorial Name Runners-Up Hall of Fame.

Anyways, the runners-up: cornerback Collin Sleeper (ironically, not a sleeper pick), sophomore defensive end LeBron Daniel (who has the unfortunate distinction distinction of being from Cleveland and named LeBron, and also having a first name for a last name), wide out JoJo Pregont, and wide receiver James Hurt (JAMES HURT!)

On to the nominees:

#91, Broderick Binns: I only saw one of the Lord of the Rings movies, so I can neither confirm nor deny that there were black hobbits. But if there was one, his name woulda been Broderick Binns. No doubt.

Broderick is a sophomore and has started every game at defensive end for the Hawkeyes, recording 4 sacks and 6.5 tackles for loss, and, somewhat oddly, leading the team in pass breakups with 8. He had one of the game-saving kick blocks in the Northern Iowa game, so, that's Brod.

#27, Jewel Hampton: You could go one of two ways if your name is Jewel: you could become a nonthreatening female pop singer, or you could spend your entire life moping about how your parents named you a name that isn't a name, but is, in fact, a thing you put on a necklace.

Hampton chose neither, and is instead a decent running back, doing the whole short-yardage thing last year and putting up seven touchdowns as a true freshman last year. Unfortunately, Jewel got injured before the season and hasn't seen the field for the Hawkeyes.

#23, Paki O'Meara: Oh, where to start with good ol' Paki. 

First off, I cannot decipher Paki's origin as hard as I try. O'Meara is an Irish name, but Paki is a name believed to have been taken from little microscopic bacteria that fell from a asteroid from Mars. I really don't have much more to elaborate on. 

Paki is a junior and the second member of an exceptionally talented name crew at running back. He's seen sparing action in the past two seasons, running for 23 yard against Maine last year, and is breaking into the lineup now with all of Iowa's running back injuries. He caught a pass for 14 yards last week against Indiana, and had two rushes for only two yards as well. 

#7, Marvin McNutt: The name McNutt is just such a silly last name. Maybe it's just me who thinks this, but if my name was Marvin McNutt, I'd walk around everywhere with a huge smile on my face. It's probably just me.

Heh. McNutt.

Marvin was a quarterback when he redshirted last year, but is a pretty decent wide receiver. He's not the go-to target, but he's brought down four touchdowns thus far, including a 92-yard game changer in a 155-yard outing last week against Indiana. Despite only starting four games, he's second on the team with 456 yards receiving.

And my pick for the winner...

# 43, Pat Angerer: An angerer. A person whose job is to anger others. An equivalent name would be Greg Pisseroffer, or Steve Guywhotellsraciallyinsensitivejokestopeopleofthatraceforthesolepurposeofprovokingthemerer. And he's a linebacker. Which is probably the most angering position possible. 

Not just a linebacker, but a damn good one: Pat was second-team all-Big Ten last year, and will most likely be first-team this year. He has the most tackles on a defense that's been murdering opponents, not to mention a pick and two forced fumbles. He was on the Lott Trophy watch list at the beginning of the year, so, yeah. Angerer.

Vote or die!

Last week's name of the week polling was a Sippin on Purple low in votes cast, and to say I'm disappointed is a massive understatement. 

Regardless, congratulations to Damarlo Belcher, who carried the vote with a pitiful 12 votes. Despite the low tally, he's still a champion, so good for Mr. Belcher.

On to the names:

First off, the honorable mentions: freshman wide receiver Shawney Kersey, the awkwardly apostrophe'd sophomore tackle DeOn'tae Pannell, freshman cornerback Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, junior wide receiver Graham Zug, and graduate student tackles Ako Poti and Nerraw McCormick, who I'm assuming has a twin brother named "Warren", because there's no other way you'd name a child Nerraw.

And now, the nominees. There are three exceptional names in here, so as always, I think they get better as they go along.

#85, Ollie Ogbu: Ollie's got some good alliteration going on with that o sound at the beginning of both names. Rolls off the tongue. This one is a throwback to Towson's Tamba Tongu.

On the field, Ollie is a junior DT from Staten Island, the fifth borough that's primarily forgotten about by me unless I'm talking about the Wu-Tang Clan, which, unfortunately, I do a lot. Ogbu has played every game in the last two years, and started every game this year, recording 20 tackles, 7.5 for a loss, and a sack on the year.

#54, Matt Stankiewitch: Stankonia. Stanky leg. Stankeiwitch. All great innovations on a word that means "this smells, but I'd like to be slightly cooler in the way that I state that it smells than just saying "it stinks."" I picture a really, really bad sandwich, or a witch that gets all the latest dance trends.

Stankiewich is a redshirt freshman who started the season's first two games at left guard, and hasn't played since.

#21, Tariq Tongue: Here's where the great Nittany Lion names begin. Tariq Tongue has a lot going for it, and he's probably win most weeks. I mean, you've got the alliteration, the Arabic first name contrasted with the English last name, and the fact that said last name is one of the top five silliest organs in the human body. You've got a q without a u after it, and like Ollie Ogbu, it just rolls off the tongue. Sorry, it rolls of the Tariq Tongue. 

Tariq is a freshman wide receiver from Queens (NEW YORRRRRRRRK SOMETHING SOMETHING WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OF, SOMETHING INSPIRES YOU, SOMETHING NEW YORK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK) who is redshirting this year. By the way, Joe Pa really cleans up in recruiting the NYC market: I count six people who, like myself, are world's greatest.

#4, Knowledge Timmons: KNOWLEDGE. HIS FIRST NAME IS KNOWLEDGE. 

Knowledge is a junior cornerback, he recorded his first pick last year against Temple, and started the first six games of the year this year, but is listed at #2 on the depth chart heading into the Saturday's game.

and my pick for the winner....

#34, Christian Kuntz: Look, people, this is a family site. I don't put words that will startle the children in most of my posts, unless I'm quoting someone. So I'm not going to go into the precise details of why someone's last name being Kuntz is tremendously unfortunate for that human being. But I think you all understand why.

Now, think about how humorous it is to have a name like Kuntz. Think about how much more humorous it is that Kuntz's first name denotes the Christianity of said Kuntz. Ahh yes, Christian Kuntz. The most pious Kuntz in all the land. (mark this post down under "posts that will probably come back to haunt me some day later.") Anyway, we're talking about multiple Kuntz, and talking about how much they revere Jesus. This is what your name is. I mean, it's a step up from Rusty, but it's a baby step.

Christian is a freshman wide receiver, and like Tariq Tongue, is redshirting. This is your space for making Tongue-Kuntz jokes. Go ahead. But remember that since it's Christian Kuntz, you might have to hold off until he's married.

So, these are the names. Let your voice be heard.

Last week a couple of Sippin' on Purple firsts occured: first off, we lost for the first time in a week the name of the week guy I picked won the vote, and second off, we lost the first time I said our mascot would lose in a fight to the death. I never thought I would see this day, and am personally distraught that my mascot death fights and name of the week actually have no effect on the game whatsoever. 

Anyways, congratulations to Mr. Denzel Drone, who won the last vote with 22 votes, holding off stiff competition from TyQuan Hammock, who finished second with 16. (by the way, what's good with my polls on this site getting less votes than the polls on my old site? what, you thought i sold out?) I'll inscribe Denzel's name on my plaque, by which I mean the back of an old sunday night dinner flyer I took down while putting up new ones, whenever I dig it up from under other papers on my desk. I swear with Lorenzo Seaberry III as my witness that I'll find a way to get that plaque to whoever wins the grand name champion at the end of the year.

Anyways, onto the names. First, some honorable mentions: cornerback Andre LaGrone (hopefully pronounced la groan), long snapper Brandon Bugg and wide receiver Duwyce Wilson had game, but not enough to make it onto the list. 

And now, the nominees:

#55, Deonte Mack: Pretty much anybody whose last name is "Mack" is awesome, except for maybe when your first name is Connie, or Freddie, because those dudes didn't seem that cool. When your first name is in fact, Deonte, it just hyperizes your cool factor. 

Deonte started nine games last year at defensive tackle, and sacked CJ Bacher, but has only played in five games thus far this year and has fallen to third on the DT depth chart.

#16, Dusty Kiel: I have a sneaking suspicion Dusty Kiel is a country singer. A female country singer.

On the other hand, IU's roster tells me he's a freshman quarterback that's redshirting this year. But they can't be believed.

#57, Jammie Kirlew: I understand Jammie is probably pronounced "Jamie", but I like pretending that it's probably pronounced "Jammy." Like, what you might call a singular pajama if you're eight years old, like it rhymes with "Grammy." Like, "hey, dude, wanna play some NBA Live 2004?" "Nah, man, not now, I'm feeling a little bit more NBA Jam-my today". Also, Ice Cube says he pulled out the jammy in "Today was a Good Day", but I'm really not sure what he meant, but it was probably something cool. 

Jammie is an all-around beast: he earned all-Big Ten honors at the DE spot (along with Corey Wootton) last season, was a finalist for the DE of the year award, and was an honorable mention all-American after finishing with 10.5 sacks and 19.5 TFL's. This year he hasn't slacked off, with 5.5 sacks, 12.5 TFL's, 2 fumbles recovered, and a bonkers 5 forced. Also, he's academic all-Big Ten with a 3.25 GPA, which is better than mine, and he's double majoring. Some people have it all, including great names.

#76, Rodger Saffold: There are two types of people whose names are phonetically pronounced "Roger" in this world. Those whose names are spelled "Roger" and those whose names are spelled "Rodger". 

Some people are named Roger. These people are weak of heart and frequently (Clemens, Rabbit) are major disappointments to all those around them. These people disgust me.

Some people, through no fault of their own, have been given the name "Rodger" by their parents. These are the men upon whom great societies are built. These are the men who, despite having no positive Rodger role models, or even Roger role models, rise up against great adversity, such as people assuming your name is spelled "Roger" until you tell them "hey, there's actually a D in my name, not sure why. It's before the G. Don't ask," and people assuming you're some type of dirty hippie because of your misspelled name, and then people being all like "man, I hate that kid Rodger! What a stupid tool! That guy has no friends!" just because your name is spelled with an extra d. (or at least that's why I think they said that.) 

Anyway, Rodger Saffold is a warrior. And we, the Rodgers of the world, salute him.

Rodger is a four year starter at left tackle who is tied for the team lead in starts with 36, and he's also a wonderful human being. 

and my nominee for the winner...

#88, Damarlo Belcher.

It's like you took this guy and this guy (who I played in high school, btdubs), but just made their respectively names better. Damarlo Belcher. Ahhh, yes. Works perfectly. I really see no way I'm not inscribing this name on the chart next week, so, go for it.

On the field, Damarlo is the team's second best wide receiver, with 377 yards and two td's on the year, including a 33 yard snag against Eastern Kentucky and a 91-yard outing (including a 29-yard td) against Illinois last week.

Anyways, vote or die! Remember, all jinxes are off, so vote with your heart. (personally, I'm voting for Rodger Saffold. He's my dude.)