Four Weeks Of Football. Let's Review.

Hell yeah I'm disappointed my Utes didn't win tonight.  I'm disappointed every time they don't win.  I have a degree from that school, so I live and die with their sports teams.  The debate team doesn't get a lot of press coverage.

But lets look at what we have here, even in the wreckage of a home loss to Washington.  We're in the PAC 12, and we've been trying to get there for 20 years.  Now that it's happened, we had a pretty good shot to do well and get into, dare I say it, a Rose Bowl.  And at this point still do.  But would going 8-4, or even 6-6 in THIS league be a terrible thing compared with winning the Mountain West Conference at 12-0, and not having a shot in hell at a National Championship?  Has everyone forgotten that we had the best college football team in the country in 2004 and 2008 and didn't get voted number 1 because we were not  considered worthy?

The PAC 12 patch on the jersey just made us, "WORTHY"!  The next time we go 13-0, we get the crystal trophy.  No other school, in any league we have been part of since 1978 can say that right now.  Yes, I'm talking to you, BYU (just as an aside, I love it when I click on, "ignore" when the spell check doesn't recognize, BYU and doesn't offer an alternative.  Seems so, appropriate).  Down there in Provo, where it's always 1984, and you think anyone outside of THIS state gives a damn about you.  You are not NOW, nor will you ever be, Notre Dame.  Give it up.

Let's say we go 6-6.  Have a bad year, by our recent standards.  After all, it appears our starting quarterback is seriously injured again.  With USC being ineligible for a Bowl Game?  We could still go to the Bowl Game in San Francisco!  My wife, if she had her way, would want them to go to THAT Bowl Game EVERY YEAR!  She grew up in the Bay Area, and likes to go back every chance she gets.

We still have a shot at the Las Vegas Bowl!  You have two conference losses in the MWC, and you won't be playing in THAT game.

Let's say a miracle happens, and the back up quarterback proves to be awesome and we win ALL the rest of our games in the regular season.  We go to the PAC 12 Championship Game, and the worst that can happen is The Holiday Bowl in San Diego.  AFTER Christmas.  In prime time.  On ESPN.

If Utah State wins all the rest of their games?  They MIGHT get to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise.  If BYU wins the rest of their games, or even if they don't and only total six wins against the weak assed schedule they have left, they are going to the Armed Forces Bowl.

So anyone who's complaining about our current situation, isn't looking at the big picture, and isn't paying attention.  We are doing pretty well, all things considered, in light of the way the conferences are shaking up right now.  We got into the right conference, at the right time.  And we should thank our lucky stars for it.

Will I ALWAYS be happy to look forward to an 8-4 season?  Hell no!  In four or five years, if we aren't a real competitor for a conference title and a Rose Bowl every year?  I'm going to be pissed.  But go look up how long it took either school from Arizona to end up in a Rose Bowl after they joined the PAC 8 to make it the PAC 10 in 1978.  And I'll bet you dollars to donuts that we do it quicker than either of them did.

And I'm not liking all the hating on Jordan Wynn.  We have a history for recruiting folks who didn't exactly set the world on fire, or were, "China Dolls" in their first or second year here, but worked out in the end.  Anyone remember a running back named Asiata that took three years to play two because of his injuries?  He ended up working out pretty well.

And if you think he's not as tough as he should be?  If you're not playing Division 1 football, you need to shut your pie hole.  I would have LOVED the opportunity to get INJURED in a Division 1 football game!  I was so slow they timed my, "forties" with a calender instead of a stop watch, so my football career ended in high school.  Human bodies can only take so much, and he's been willing to put his on the line for OUR school.  So, let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

My friend, Todd who's a BYU fan has had a BALL this evening, posting stuff in FB about how there is now an Arby's in SLC offering free turnovers for Ute tickets.  He's a funny guy.

But the fact is, the Arbys photo we all saw from Provo was REAL, and he's just making this shit up to be funny.  And they can't AFFORD our turnovers, since they are BCS turnovers, and, "That School Down South", and their fans don't have THAT kind of money.  They are way too expensive.  And much more tasty when they come at the end of the year, served in the tailgate lot of a BCS Bowl Game they will never, ever see.

So, Ute fans, if you think you should be disappointed at this stage of the season?  Think again.  Yeah, we all want to go undefeated.  People in hell want ice water.  How does it feel to want?  You should be happy to be where you are, and strive to make us better in the future.  Write those checks to, The Crimson Club.  Buy your season tickets, even if you can't use them all the time (and I'm the Poster Child for that after the cancer surgery, trust me). Buy the Bowl Tickets, even if you have to give them away.  Being a big time college football fan is like being a political donor.  You give the money up front, even if you don't know if your candidate is going to win.  You might never get it back, but you might do some good!

This is how you help.  Not by painting your face and posting on Face book that you are pissed about losing!  Keep supporting the team, and we WILL end up doing well.  Patience, Grasshopper. 

Yeah, I know.  Some of you are thinking, Yoda here at my, Grasshopper reference:  "TRY NOT!  DO, or DO NOT!"  But it's a whole new ball game now that we are in this conference.  Give it some time.  And allow a TRY, without expecting to win EVERY time.

We are, using another movie reference, the, "rich kids camp" from, Meatballs, compared to the other schools in this state, and the conference we USED to be in.  And right now, they are saying, "Even if we play SO far above our heads, that our noses bleed for a week to ten days, the rich kids will get all the girls!"  And they are SO right.  Enjoy where you are.  We've been in, "worse than this" for many, many years.  I like having a shot a whole lot more than NEVER having a shot.