It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times. Football Wise.

This might just be the worst football season the Utes have had to endure since before Ron McBride rode into town and made us respectable.  And yet, it's the best football season EVER at the, "U"!  How can that be?  Because we now belong to the PAC 12!

And being 0-4 in the PAC 12 beats the shit out of being 4-0 in The Mountain West!  Hoping you can go undefeated, and MAYBE get a BCS Bowl game at the start of every season is not any where NEAR as cool as knowing that if you win your conference, you are GUARANTEED a BCS Bowl game.  And you don't even need to go undefeated to do it.

Yeah, right now it sucks to be us.  It's obvious that our second stringers can't play at the BCS level.  And we have a bunch of injuries.  But football is a game of injuries.  And as we have more time in this league, we will be able to recruit the kind of guys who can step up and play here.  Look at what Oregon has done.  They lose two, "All World" players in the last few weeks, and they still kick ass.  Being in the PAC 12, we now have the ability to do that, too!  And it's going to be great to watch it happen.

And I'm not just talking about the talent in Southern California.  It's not going to take long for any kid in Utah, regardless of his religious upbringing,  to realize that if he has ANY potential at all, he wants to be on a team that's playing Cal in late October, and not Idaho State.

By the way.  Did tsds win that game today?  Never mind.  No one cares.  Forget I brought it up.

So, Ute fans, we just got to take this season, every drubbing, every turn over, every, "Damn, we COULD have won that game!" moment and realize that this is the price we have to pay to move up in the world, and leave the folks we used to hang out with, behind.

Change is hard.  Every behavioral science major can tell you that human beings seek pleasure and try to avoid pain.  And that change, even from a totally lousy situation is harder than sticking around and enduring it, because you know how to deal with it.  It's why addicts stay addicted, and why abused spouses don't leave.

So we are going through a period of growth right now.  And it's going to hurt.  A lot.  I honestly don't think we will win another game this year.  Maybe OSU and/or Colorado.  But that being said, I HOPE we do!  I HOPE we win three more and end up in a Bowl Game.  I HOPE we can turn this around, and some guys will step up and deliver for us.

I'm not holding my breath.

But I can't wait for what we can become with this new conference affiliation.  Yeah, we're getting smacked down now, but we've beaten Cal, and Oregon, and UCLA, and OSU, and Washington State, and Arizona, and Stanford all since, Ron McBride took over in the 90's.  And we are capable of beating them again.  Regularly.

Of course, beating them when you have to play all the OTHER teams in the PAC 12, instead of Wyoming and New Mexico, or Idaho State on the alternate weeks, is going to be tougher.

Any of you read, Douglas Adams, "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy"?  What was the first rule?  DON'T PANIC!  So, Ute fans, don't panic.  This is NOT our season.  But, at the same time?  It's a GREAT season, because we have joined the elite in college football.  And it's only going to get better from here.

I just have to remember to hide all my guns before next Saturday so I don't shoot myself when we lose again.  Going to be a long fall.  But a great decade!  Trust me.