Welcome to CrashUtah - Where BYU fans Talk Sports

I realize that there is no preseason in college football, and that more than any other sport every single game counts, but i really enjoy the conference season more. Maybe it is the familiar opponents or the rivalries, but I really think it comes from the deep desire of every team to beat their conference foes and win a conference title.

It is much easier to shrug off a loss to a non-conference opponent because you probably won’t play them for a long time, and in a lot of cases it may have even been expected that you would lose. On the off chance that you do will it will be written off as a fluke.

On the other hand your conference members will see you again next year and be looking for revenge. There is also the inevitable relationships that get formed and broken as coaches move between schools or coach at their alma mater’s rival. There are no moral victories during the conference schedule.

If there was any doubt that New Mexico might consider a close game with such a high ranked team a moral victory consider the words of head coach Rocky Long:

“I read a quote from [a Utah newspaper] that I guess Utah State scored when they were down by 27 or 30 and they were hooting and hollering. Our team won’t do that. Our team is not going to hoot or holler unless it’s the score that wins the game. We’re not our there for moral victories, we’re not out there for statistics, we’re out there to win the game.”

That pretty much sums it up for me. The next few weeks will either be some of the most fun in my BYU fandom, or some of the most dissapointing. I love the conference season!

That is really all BYU did this week, but I can’t complain. The rise to 8 in the AP poll and 7 in the coaches poll was to be expected after the rash of upsets that took place over the weekend. The great fear now is of overconfidence. I’m glad BYU gets Utah State on the flipside of their bye week so that even if they don’t play a perfect game they will still win most likely.

The biggest upside to being ranked this high so early is that all BYU has to do is maintain and they will be in a BCS bowl. It would be really hard to move them down in the rankings as long as they keep winning. Perhaps the brightest spot in these rankings is that BYU has garnered enough respect to move up even when they don’t play. This shows that people are noticing what is going on in Provo. Recognition will only aid in furthering the program.

While the added attention should help with recruiting, the rash of losses amongst big name schools this week goes to show that who you play isn’t nearly as important as how you play. Parity in college football is glaringly evident these days. The difference now and in the future will be the effectiveness of coaching, and I am glad we have Bronco to lead us into the future.

Anytime you shutout another team and put 44 points up on the board you can’t really complain too much. I am sure the first stringers are a little frustrated by only plaing half games, but I think this will pay huge dividends later in the season when the games are closer, especially if there should be some injuries. The coach in me still sees some areas for improvement. The most glaring being the penalties. Nine penalties for 79 yards will be a lot more painful in a close game. I have to admit I did not see the game, so some of those may have come at the end in garbage time, but it caught my eye.

The move up in the rankings seems just about right. The only team I would suggest we could go ahead of right now is Texas Tech, but they are in a BCS conference so they automatically get some advantage. It will be interesting to see how willing the voters will be to move BYU up from here as teams ahead of them inevitably lose. The most likely losers being Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and even though I live in Austin, Texas. Obviously, there are a million different variables, but the real question is what teams will jump over BYU even if they go undefeated.

Congrats to TCU for cracking the rankings. It is definitely deserved. They are putting up some great numbers with the nations best overall defense, and number six in points allowed. It makes that showdown on Oct. 16 even more interesting should they keep playing well.

There is so much that could be said about that beautiful game on Saturday. What I liked most about it though is how BYU took all of the negative media from the last week and laid it to rest, at least to some degree. One sign of a good team is one that can win the close games when they come, which will inevitably happen in college football. Another is a team that will jump all over their opponent’s mistakes, and then refuse to let up. I’m not talking about running up the score, because I am against that. What I am all for is continuing to execute no matter what the score is. Why shouldn’t the reserves be allowed to bring their best to the field and show what they can do? It is in games like this that they gain invaluable game experience.

My biggest congrats has to go to the defense. Good on you for maintaining the shutout all the way to the end. It really upset me the last few years when BYU would be up big and the reserves would come in and let the other team score a couple of times. I realize it is just my pride talking, but for a defense that was oft criticized this week by just about everyone, they should have a little swagger in their step for a couple of days. Now they just need to work on legitimizing it for a few games in a row.

Due to the huge volume of posts and articles on the internet regarding the legitimacy of the celebration call at the end of the game I will add my two cents by simply saying it was a good call on a really stupid rule.

Now for my opinion of the game as a whole. It was exactly as anyone would expect with a PAC-10 officiating crew, which can be well shown by a couple of pictures:

I’ve seen less holding in a BYU dorm room. I am well aware of the fact that calls get missed on every single play of any given game, but when it is as deliberate as some of those holds on Saturday someone needs to address the situation.

It would be a logistical nightmare initially, but why isn’t the NCAA the group that oversees officiating. Doesn’t it seem like a conflict of interest to anyone else that each conference is responsible for their own officials. At the very least an endeavor like the MWC and Big 12 are trying to workout would be beneficial. Regional officiating crews that don’t have direct conference ties would be more successful and would in large part alleviate any idea that crews are biased to their own conference. If there wasn’t some advantage to having your own officiating crews, why would the PAC-10 insist on using only their crews for non-conference games?

This was obviously not a game for the ages, but there was definitely a lot to be excited about. First of all how about Dennis Pitta? How do you stop someone like that? Gaining 200 yards all by yourself is a good couple of weeks in college.

Max Hall had a great start. A quarterback rating near 200 and almost 500 passing yards is not a bad way to start the season.

The scary thing about the offense is all of the fumbles again. It is starting to remind me of last year a little bit. What is reassuring to me is that fumbles can be fixed with a little bit of hard work. At least they weren’t interceptions.

All in all I think the defense did a good job, but just like the fumbles, it was a little bit like last year: play stellar defense, but give up a huge play or two that really ruin the stat line. I realize that stats are not everything, but when people start looking at your unit rankings it is important that they be solid.

This was the perfect start to the season from a long term perspective. First, and foremost, you get the win. Second, no major injuries. Finally, you did a lot of good things, but you still have some obvious and definite things you need to work on. It is really frustrating as a coach when your team is not playing to their potential, but you can’t figure out exactly what is wrong, or what to do about it.

I think every cougar fan is ready for BYU to finally win a tournament game. We could all certainly complain about the #8 seed, but that’s really no excuse for BYU to lose. Sure, a 5, 6 or 7 seed would probably be a little easier game. However, getting a #8 seed isn’t nearly as bad as when we should have gotten a #10 seed and got a #12 seed. At least we’re playing someone who is ranked below us. Now it’s time to show everyone that we should have been ranked higher. UNLV did a good job today representing the MWC. BYU needs to do the same.

It’s pretty easy to say that the second half is going to be important for BYU. We’ve been normally playing quite well in the first half and then just fall apart in the second half. I hope Lee gets a bunch of early second half touches. I think he’s going to be a hard match up for the Aggies.

A quick video analysis of the 2008 MWC conference finals matching BYU vs. UNLV.

Thanks to the nice blowout game I just experienced at the Thomas and Mack, I had to enjoy watching the game for other reasons. Everyone knows about Trent, Lee and JT or the big 3 as there sometimes called. Certainly it’s a promising trio for the future assuming Trent doesn’t leave for the NBA. However, a few other things have really been quite unexpected this season:

-Burgess attacking the basket is a thing of beauty. He has a quick first step and is a strong finisher. I love seeing him blow by someone and go hard to the basket.
-Jimmer is as promising a guard as BYU has had. I love his scorer mentality and he’s provided a number of big lifts as a freshman. Many more good things to come from him.
-Archie Rose phenomenon. Try asking a BYU fan why we love Archie Rose and I think you’ll find them speechless. I don’t know why he’s so loved, but I get as excited as anyone seeing him on the floor. Especially with his new mask.
-Chris Miles. Chis always had the length, but I think everyone was surprised that he played better in the first UNLV game than Trent did. Showed me some real signs of promise. Today at the game I was able to be down close and Chis is looking pretty beefy. He’s not the same stick that he was before that could easily be pushed around. I was scared Chris would be a shorter Shawn Bradley. After today I think Chris has a very bright future at BYU.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief that BYU was able to pull out the 45th home win in a row against the hated Yewts. Games against the Yewts are always way too close for comfort and painful to watch. Well, at least until BYU wins. Unfortunately, not many people saw it because our beloved TV partners decided to show it on the MTN instead of CSTV or Versus. Even BYU TV would have been 100 times better than the MTN. Dick Harmon described the shows that showed on CSTV and Versus as opposed to BYU vs. Utah:

Versus showed “Wildcats,” a 1986 movie staring Goldie Hawn and Nipsey Russell from 7 to 9 p.m. After that, Versus chose to show Stage 3 of the “Tour of California, which may have been a repeat.

CSTV — which chose to air a fine blowout of Utah’s over BYU women’s basketball on Tuesday night to a national audience — on Wednesday aired a One2One sports highlight show on the career of Doug Williams from 8 to 8:30 p.m.

From 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., right in the critical part of the Ute-Cougar battle, CSTV aired a repeat of a Memphis-Tulane basketball that aired earlier. By the way, Memphis won the game 97-71 the second time around also.

Ok, I could see Versus telling us to shove it if it was the Tour de France, but some old school movie and the Tour of California? It’s amazing the choices these stations have made. Too bad we’re stuck, because my guess is that almost nothing can be done about it now.

On a higher note, I think we saw the future of BYU in Jimmer Fredette. Finally a guard at BYU that can make shots for himself, drive the lane and hit a 3. Not to mention how well he’s matured over the year. Let’s just hope he steps up and plays just as well in the NCAA tournament. Yes, they’re going to the tournament. The only question now is whether we can keep the winning ways going and get a decent seed in the tournament. Should be a lot of fun to watch.

UPDATE: Looks like the AD at San Diego State says that there’s a deal between the MTN and DirectTV. Too bad the MWC office and BYU’s Assitant AD say they haven’t heard anything. I expect this means a deal is close to done. Will this deal push other cable networks and Dish Network to get on board too?