Last edited by LA Ute; 09-08-2017 at 12:53 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
That's a good point. I could look at returning users to get a better assessment although it has it flaws too. Many Utah fans (my father being an example of this) also only visit UFN on important games. Then he asks me why I am involved in that site. It is good to know you can continue to disappoint your parents well into adulthood.
I believe you both are speaking truth in your own ways.
I believe there was interest on both sides and they both came to the negotiation table, but that there were specific terms they couldn't agree on, so there was no official legal offer. My guess is the biggest sticking points included sunday play and TV rights for BYUTv
I wonder if it would be different if the game were late in the season like it used to be. We really don't know what either of these teams is about quite yet. Plus, I too am looking ahead to Stanford. Don't get me wrong - I want to see a win on Saturday - but a loss wouldn't really phase me.
This is why I think it's a dangerous game for the utes. A win will mean more to the byu than it will to the U. The stakes are unequal.
σοφῷ ἀνδρὶ Ἑλλὰς πάντα.
-- Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.35.2.
I don't think it ever got that far. There may have been some phone calls as the Big12 did their due diligence, but the Big12 was looking for teams that (1) had had recent success (like, top 10 finishes) and (2) were reasonable geographically. BYU never had a chance to shoot themselves in the foot as they were never under serious consideration. Maybe BYU started making preemptive demands to save face, but those demands are not what kept BYU out. The Big12 just wanted WVU and TCU more.
BYU was actually much closer last year when the Big12 was thinking expansion.
Outstanding post, bolstered by data.
There is some portion of Ute fans at the periphery - eg, "who's our RB this year?" If the answer isn't immediate, they're peripheral fans - for whom rooting for the Utes is a social statement, in the context of the state and dominant demographic, "us and them", etc.
At the same time, the PAC membership has impressively altered our identity, for the positive... completely irrespective of BYU.
My "goals" for tomorrow: 1) Win, 2) get the youngsters fully engaged on what an intense road atmosphere is like, 3) minimize the injuries, 4) minimize the friction, 5) turn the page.
Last edited by Ma'ake; 09-08-2017 at 12:53 PM.
I was a "I don't care about the rivalry game" guy.
I could have cared less if we ever played them again.
The break happened and I was glad.
But, when it was announced we were playing them in the Vegas Bowl I became excited. I realized that I missed the game.
I still think the obvious compromise is the 3 times in 5 years I've talked about before.
I'm ok with breaks to play better brands.
But I don't want it to go away completely. It's a fun game.
Last year some friends decorated my office with BYU stuff (all in good fun). This year this was their attempt (they put a small amount of blue and white hole punches on a piece of paper and left it on my desk if you can't tell).
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The loyalty or skin of any fan who ultimately doesn't believe this should be questioned.
I'll say it again: A large majority of Utah fans are perfectly OK with 6/10, with a potential bowl tie-in in the other 4 (maximum of one game), if we're playing average-and-above P5s in the 4 years we don't play BYU in the regular season. The question we gotta ask ourselves now, is playing Baylor worthy of taking a break from BYU? Not gonna lie here -- there are only two teams that would be more meh in the Big 12 (Iowa State, Kansas), and we've played both of them in the adult lives of at least half of our fanbase.
I'll also maintain that our non-con scheduling will be largely meh until the stadium expands. Don't use Michigan as something that can happen frequently -- that's a generational non-conference series. But my ideal/realistic H-H partner from each of the major conferences would be Iowa (Big 10), Kansas State or Oklahoma State (Big 12), Ole Miss (SEC) and North Carolina State (ACC).
Good post. We can have nice things: BYU AND another P5 opponent. I know there are people that will say "but what if we're not bowl eligible?", or "too hard", or "consider the children", but what good is a football team that doesn't play (and sometimes beat) the big boys?
McBride just said Pease mooned BYU fans as a player. Lol.
That's really interesting info, Rocker. I have a contrasting take for comparison. As I've mentioned here before, I'm one of essentially two admins for the UteNation Facebook page. I think the Facebook group represents a different kid be of fan than uf.n. At 7,600 members, we "benefit" from the ease and convenience of living in the FB world. In a given game week, we'll have maybe 25 different members actively engage in discussion about the game. This number tends to decrease through the season. During this week, we've added probably 150 new members and have see posts from people that have never posted before and likely won't again once the game is over. So probably a much different trend line than what you pick up at uf.n. I hate to give them more credit than they deserve, but the uf.n probably represents a more informed and committed fan. The FB member aligns more closely with the "I'm a Mormon in South Carolina so of course I have a BYU shirt" level of fan. These are the fans that Monson was talking about. They don't really follow the program too much but when we're playing BYU, they suddenly feel vested to state their uninformed opinions about the state of the two programs. My data is obviously much more qualitative, but I thought I contribute it anyway.
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Good lord. We won over our rival, for the 5th straight time, on a neutral field, while leading wire to wire (nearly literally), and were never in a position to lose! You'd think that we lost the game by the way U fans talk about it.
Get over them almost-keeping-it respectable.
Last edited by Applejack; 09-08-2017 at 03:06 PM.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd call us at UFN informed but perhaps more passionate than the average fan.
I think our respective data correlates actually, because there is definitely an uptick in traffic for BYU games. What I am seeing though is that there is now also an uptick for traffic for the big games like USC, Oregon, Stanford etc. Another consideration that you may not be able to see in your numbers is lurkers like me on Utenation who read the posts as they come in my feed but don't post or typically go directly to your page. My traffic information I looked at is just anyone who went to the site, whether they posted or not.
I am one who cares much less about this rivalry than I used to. I just don't have the same hate. Where have you gone, Nate Cooper?
I am also all for never playing these bastards again, simply because I want them to be irrelevant, and the rivalry gives them relevance. "But if you want them to be irrelevant, just beat them!," the super enlightened among us say. Beating them isn't as effective as ignoring them. If we want them to be irrelevant, we should treat them as irrelevant. I want them to be irrelevant. They have so little to play for, really. Why give them anything?
That said, this one didn't seem like too big a deal during the summer, but it feels a little different now. They are desperate. They are staring into the abyss. All this Kalani-Detmer stuff reawoke the spirit of the Zoob. They were pretty hopeless near the end of Captain Bronconi's reign. The all-in throwback to the glory days gave them life, but, even after just two weeks, many of them are already rediscovering the BYU's true place in the pecking order. If Utah can lay it on them, like it seems like they should, this game could cement what most observers already think regarding the place of BYU in the universe. It would expose the resurrection of the glory days as a total marketing win with zero substance.
The BYU is never going away. They will beat Utah again sometime. But if Utah can give them the ass Kicking of a lifetime tomorrow, I really think it takes all of the false momentum away from them, and the reality begins to match the perception even for those in whom the spirit of the Zoob is strongest. It would last a long time.. It's time to sweep the leg.
Sadly, though, I don't think its gonna hapoen. I have rarely felt so confident of a Ute victory in this game. It feels wrong. That makes me think they are gonna lose. True Ute, over here.
I was just saying that we sat in our seats the moment Travis scampered for 25 yards to go up 35-0. I thought for sure that this was the perfect day to break my curse of poor offensive production while I was sitting in the stands. According to ESPN, we had 142 yards and 0 points from that point on.
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For as long as I can remember, every year BYU fans would predict lopsided wins over Utah, perhaps a byproduct of the 70s and 80s when such wins were often delivered. But even when the rivalry became competitive and the lopsided BYU wins became fewer and farther in between, the predictions of lopsided wins continued, an annual staple of rivalry week. Heck, even now, there are a few diehards still making such predictions.
On the flip side, I have yet to hear or read a prediction this year from a Ute fan for a lopsided win.
As for the local media, they acknowledge, as Monson did, that Utah is the superior program, yet this seems to earn the Utes only equal coverage with the team that used to dominate media coverage.
I don't need the media to constantly say nice things about the Utes, I would just like to hear more about Utah -- a lot more -- than about the team down south.
"It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant
May that game become known as the beginning-of-the-end of Whitt's tight-fisted conservativism on offense. That was completely asinine, and Whitt was right to be pissed, and really it was on him.
Hopefully, Travis has a respectable career as a TE in the NFL, but even with Travis, I wonder how a strong hand on the offense - ala what we all hope Taylor represents - would have made the last 3 quarters of that game different. When the opposing defense doesn't want to lay down, AND they know you're trying to burn the clock, the LOS battle is pretty much lost.
I suspect Taylor would have put up another 21 points, but we would have thrown a Pick 6, too.
If we get the chance tomorrow, I hope we stand on their throats. There will be games where it's smart to go conservative with a sizable lead, but if we get that tomorrow, don't let up. I think BYU is much more likely to fold up this year if half of their fans are bailing out early.
I hope strategy always rules over emotion. The common denominator in all crazy comeback games is the offense still throwing when up 30+ points. If you ever get up 30+ points in a football game against a decent team, it's time to shut things down. The only way to lose that game is to turn the ball over and to slow the game down.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell