Excited about Utah moving to the PAC 10

It has been a couple of weeks since the Utes officially joined the PAC 10 but I'm still excited about it. The thought of having a home schedule full of PAC 10 teams and the opportunity to compete at the highest level makes me as excited as I've ever been about Utah athletics.

The week leading up to the official announcement drove me nuts. I was constantly checking the internet to see what was going on and at one point and I really got to the point where I thought the PAC 12 was absolutely dead and I thought our only chance was to be the last spot in the new PAC 16. That would have been a good thing too but I think the way it worked out gives Utah a much better chance to be competitive right off the bat.

I think the local (Utah) media did an absolutely horrible job of covering this story. The only insight that was given was from another source (mostly from the Texas Rivals home site Orangeblood.com). The local writers that have the job of covering Utah had no idea what was going on which was extremely disappointing. At least the local radio shows (1320 KFAN and 1280 the Zone) covered the story in great detail and gave it the attention it deserved prior to the official announcement. However, the local papers were extremely disappointing in the amount of coverage it gave the story and the insight provided. They were clueless. I had more information from just searching the internet than they reported.

I've been surprised at how bitter the byu fans have been over all of this. I expected them to be disappointed but the level of bitterness has exceeded my expectations. Most seem to have the "it should have been us! We deserved it" mentality. It is almost like a girl pouting because the boy she had a crush on asked someone else to the dance. I truly think the byu ends up in the Big 12 within the next few years but with the way that conference shares its revenue is not as advantageous of a situation as the PAC 10.

The other rationalization I hear from the byu fans is that Utah will be sorry it left because they will just be lucky to win 6 or 7 games in the PAC 10? Aren't those providing this argument insulting their own school and conference? All I hear is how the MWC is on par with the big boys and deserves a automatic berth into the BCS. If you truly believe that the MWC is legit than you should think that one of its top schools will be immediately successful in the PAC 10. In fact, you should hope for it because it would help legitimize the claim.

Thoughts on the upcoming Utah Football Season

I was a bit surprised to hear last week that Jordan Wynn is now the frontrunner for the QB job at the U. However, he must be pretty darn good. My theory is that if the other two QBs were even close to him, one of them would be the starter. It would seem like a waste of a redshirt year otherwise. I could be wrong.

I don't have huge expectations for the year. However, I think this year will tell us a lot about where the program is. If they follow up last year with 10 wins this year we have something special for a very long time. On the other hand, if we fall to a mediocre 7 win season it might simply mean last year was a fluke and we're now back in reality. I think 9 wins this year would be more than acceptable having to go to Oregon, TCU, and Byu. All I ask is that we win the games we're supposed to. The rest is gravy.

Unfortunately, I think the byu will win the conference this year. That may be blasphamy coming from a die-hard Ute but that's the way I see it. They have TCU and Utah coming to their place and they have a Senior QB that is pretty tough. TCU will falter somewhere along the line. They'll be tough but I think they drop that game in Happy Valley. Utah will have to win at Byu and TCU likely to win the conference. That might be too much to ask. If we get one of those I think we're doing well (assuming we don't drop a game we shouldn't).

Jazz may miss Boozer

I don't like the idea of the Jazz losing Boozer. Although I like Millsap as much as the next guy I don't think he can carry the load. Apparantly the Jazz and Boozer are going different directions but I think both sides might regret it.

The Jazz offense is made for Boozer. It revolves around the power forward and plays to Boozer's strengths. I've always felt like Boozer got a bad rap here. What has he done that is really that bad? The knock on him in Utah is that he doesn't play hurt and doesn't play hard enough. If I can get a guy that gets me over 20 points and 10 rebounds a game without playing hard I'll take it. That just means when things matter such as in the playoffs I'm likely to get even more out of him. The best players seem to get their stats with ease (with the perception that they're not trying that hard).

BCS a good thing for Mid-Majors????

Since the BCS was dicussed recently and the Mountain West Conference reluctantly decided to sign the new agreement I've been thinking about the BCS a little bit this week. I can't believe I'm even going to present this argument but can the BCS be a good thing for the smaller conferences compared to the way things used to be? Before you think I'm crazy, just think about it for a minute.

Before the BCS existed each conference had affliations with certain bowl games (still exists in the current system). The Big 12 Champion went to the Orange Bowl, Big 10/Pac-10 Champion in the Rose, SEC to the Sugar. These affliations still exist. However, the difference is this past year my own beloved Utah Utes played in the Sugar Bowl. In 2004, my Utes played in the Fiesta. As I thought about the BCS this week I realized that under the old system the Utes wouldn't have had either of these opportunities. They would have been stuck playing in the Las Vegas Bowl or something similar because the prior system did not allow any outlet whatsoever to play in the big ones.

I'm not saying the BCS is fair or that I'm in favor of it. The point I'm trying to make is that allows more access than existed prior to its existence for teams like Utah and other non-BCS conferences than existed in the old bowl system.

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The Jazz are done!

The Jazz were thumped again in Dallas tonight. There must be some internal issues going on with the team right now because they aren't even close.

As Jazz fans we need to stop kidding ourselves that this team is great because they're not. They have the potential to be there but it will be a long summer and this team's "potential" may not be so optimistic after the Jazz make some tough personnel decisions this summer.

Random Thoughts

I was pleasantly surprised that the Utes went undefeated this past year in football. The team found a way to win each game. The most impressive thing to me is that it never did anything in the big games to beat itself. The team was simply patient, waiting for the other team to make mistakes, and then capitalized. It was very impressive especially since in Utah’s football history the past 10 years it seems to be the opposite on so many occasions. Now we have the golden opportunity of playing Alabama in the bowl game. I have no idea what to expect out of this game but I’m excited about it. Hopefully, Utah will find a way to pull that one out.

As for the basketball team, I’m somewhat optimistic about the progress that has been made but what troubles me the most is that we now lose quite often at home. That is not a good sign at all. That just didn’t happen during the Majerus era and it bothers me to no end that we are no longer dominant in the Huntsman Center. I still like Boylen but I miss the dominance we enjoyed for so long under Majerus.

The BCS is as messed up this year as ever. Texas got the shaft! How could anyone ever give the nod to Oklahoma over Texas when Texas beat Oklahoma? It reminds me of Florida St’s national championship back in the 90s when it and Notre Dame each had one loss but Flordia St.’s loss was to Notre Dame yet Florida St. was still voted National champ. That was before the BCS but it is the same problem. How can anything mean more than head to head competition? I’ll never understand that.

The 2nd BCS problem this year that has been overlooked is that fact that Ohio St. was selected as an at-large team. We depend on this system to determine who the two top teams are to play for the national championship but Ohio St. gets a bid when it is rated below an undefeated Boise St. in the standings. It doesn’t make any sense.

One major improvement to the BCS would simply be to remove the automatic bids. That would have eliminated non-deserving schools this year like Virginia Tech and Cincinnati and given the chance to teams like Boise St. We all a playoff is more likely than that though. Why would the major conferences give away that power? It has a monopoly.