RIP Utah vs. BYU

This mornings Tribune sports section devoted most of it's front page to moaning over the loss of the annual Utah/BYU football game.  Personally, I say, "Good riddance. We don't need it any more."

For all the years that Gordon Monson and Kurt Kragthorpe were beating the drum that Utah and BYU deserved the kind of recognition that bigger schools get, you would think that after the events of the last two years, they would realize they were HALF right.  Utah does.  BYU, not so much.

Monson seems to think it's a bad thing because Utah is going to schedule a, "cupcake" school, and they might lose to BYU.  Yep.  You got that right, Gordo.  And it's the way it is in college football these days.  A random look at the schedule of some SEC schools shows Alabama playing two, "directional" schools, Western Kentucky and the week before they play Auburn, Western Carolina.

Vanderbilt is taking on perennial football powerhouses Presbyterian (I was raised one, and know nothing about THIS school.  Like where it is?) and Massachusetts, which became a FBS school only this year.

South Carolina is playing UAB early in the year and Wofford the week before their season ending game at Clemson.

I guess I can overlook the BYU cheerleader sports writers failure to pick up a college football magazine this summer.

He also seems to think that our future schedule will include a, "Paducah State", but here's the rub on that.  Right now, BYU might still be able to beat Utah on occasion.  But with a schedule that's heavy on Thursday night games against the likes of Idaho, San Jose State and New Mexico State?  It's not going to be long before BYU IS, Paducah State.  What chance do you have to recruit real talented players with no conference to win, no chance at ever playing in a BCS Game and no chance to ever play college football on a Saturday afternoon?

I don't know how Monson can say that most of the state wants the rivalry to continue.  Most of the BYU fans do.  I'm pretty sure it's a safe bet to think most Mormons want the games to continue.  But Ute fans aren't going to miss it.

Kragthorpe doesn't get it either. Yes, we could have made room on our schedule for BYU, but we don't want to! Most of my friends are Utah Football season ticket holders and we're happy the game is going away. We'd rather play Michigan.

When BYU held their breath and threw a temper tantrum that they didn't get invited to a BCS conference a couple years ago, they sealed their fate.  They refused to make the concessions necessary to be invited to the Big 12.  And they had such an inflated view of their own worth to college football that they thought they would be able to pull off a Notre Dame type schedule every year.  It isn't going to happen.

Look, the Utes now have a new priority.  Win the PAC 12 and go to the Rose Bowl is the goal at the start of every year.  Even LAST year that was the goal.  Was it obtainable?  Hell yes!  We were two missed field goals away from doing exactly that!  Would we have beaten Oregon?  Probably not, but it would have been a lot of fun to watch us try.

It's been said that the folks down in Utah County live in the, "bubble".  And the password to get into the bubble is, "1984".  And all this fuss about not playing Utah seems to confirm it.  These are two schools going in different directions in college football.

It's not 1984 any more.  A lousy Utah football season can no longer be salvaged just by beating BYU at the end of it.  And I'm pretty sure that as much as we will come to loath Colorado as our new rival, there will not be a time in the foreseeable future when beating them would save an otherwise terrible season.

We do indeed have bigger fish to fry these day.  Bigger than New Mexico State and Idaho.  So when you take the BYU game off the schedule, and replace them with Wofford, or Presbyterian or some similar school, it gives your team a rest.  And we're going to need a lot of rest to get to The Rose Bowl.