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Thread: How "close" has the rivalry game been since PAC-12?

  1. #1

    How "close" has the rivalry game been since PAC-12?

    I keep hearing as "proof" that BYU has almost equal talent to Utah because "the rivalry game is always sooo CLOSSSSEEEE."

    So, how "close" has this game really been?

    Since PAC-12, Utah is 5-0 but look at the scores:

    54-10
    24-21
    20-6
    35-28
    20-19

    Damn. Pretty freaking close, right? I mean, if you take out the 2011 game, the average margin of victory is just 6 points. What a game!!! It's so close, right? Damn, I'm totally sweating this fall. I mean, like, we've been so lucky to beat BYU and if the ball bounces their way instead of ours...we could TOTALLY lose this game.

    BYU is good, right?

    Well, let's just see how "close" these games are. Scores at the end of the third quarter:

    30-10 Utah
    24-7 Utah
    13-6 Utah
    35-14 Utah
    17-13 Utah

    That paints a little different picture, right? All of the sudden, at the end of the third quarter Utah has had an average lead of 14 points. A 2-4 score lead.

    Damn. Maybe BYU ain't so good anymore, are they?

    Let's look at this further.

    BYU has an average deficit of 14 points going into the fourth quarter. In order to actually win the game, they would need to tie the game first, correct? Let's look at how many games BYU even had a chance to TIE the game:

    2011 - nope
    2012 - yes
    2013 - yes
    2015 - nope
    2016 - yes

    So, in the five games, they actually had a chance to tie the game in three of the five games. Not too bad.

    Now, let's look at how many of the games they actually tied the game:

    2011 - nope
    2012 - nope
    2013 - nope
    2015 - nope
    2016 - nope

    WHAT?!? BYU hasn't tied the game ONCE in the last five games in the fourth quarter? But I thought these games were close? Wouldn't a team actually need to tie a game to have a chance to win the game? And if they can't even tie the game, how close is the game?

    Not very.

    Let's continue our intellectual journey here.

    Wouldn't you say that in order to have a close game, the other team would actually need to have a chance to win the game? So, out of the last five games, how many games did BYU actually have the ball with a shot to go down, score, and take the lead, hopefully leading to a win? Let's see:

    2011 nope. They never had a chance to tie or win the game.
    2012 - They had a chance to tie the game, but didn't have a chance to win the game.
    2013 - They had a chance to tie the game, but didn't have a chance to win the game.
    2015 - They never had a chance to tie the game and never had a chance to win the game.
    2016 - They could have tied or won the game.

    That sucks. So, out of the last 5 games, they had a shot to win only ONE game? And that game was a game where Utah had 6 TO's?

    lol.

    This game ain't close. The talent ain't close. I doubt Utah has 6 TO's this fall.

    As SoCalPat pointed out, I said the game wouldn't have been close last fall, and it was, I was wrong.

    Let's see what the final score is this fall. I felt that Utah had really taken a step forward talent wise in 2014 and we saw that in 2015 with a 35 point first quarter. We saw that again last fall when we had 6 TO's and still won (there isn't a single PAC-12 team we could beat with 6 TO's.).

    The BYU game has become equivalent to the USU game 10 years ago. BYU will win every 10-15 games. And when they do, it will be on some fluke (ala USU's last win, where they had their best coach ever and we were relying on DII QB and a true freshman and they needed a bad call to win the game).

    Enjoy it Utah fans.
    Last edited by Utah; 06-08-2017 at 11:15 PM.

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