Welcome to CrashUtah – Where BYU fans Talk Sports

This hasn’t been the best year when it comes to the head to head with utah, but I came across a pleasant surprise tonight.

My wife and I had just finished watching a show on our DVR and when I turned it back to live tv it was on ESPN, which is what it usually is. As I flipped up the ESPN stations the title said college rugby, so I decided to stop and take a look. As luck would have it, it was BYU and utah playing.

What was even more beautiful was that BYU was dominating, and they have continued to do so since I started watching. I started watching about ten minutes into the second half, and it has just been a BYU scorefest since then.

Now I won’t begin to tell you that I know much about rugby, but any idiot can tell you that winning by 39 is a good thing. The hits have been hard, the passes accurate, and the playmaking creative. Make that winning by 46. Call me crazy but that is a good score for the game, not just for margin of victory.

I really wish I had gone to more rugby games in high school, it is just so much fun to watch. Having gone to Highland High the few games I did see were a lot of fun to watch.

It is such a pure sport when it comes to straight up strength and skill against your opponent. From what I understand, it is also the ultimate team game. Having one or two stars does you no good if they don’t have the support behind them.

I am also just starting to enjoy more of the sports that aren’t as well followed. It is so refreshing to see athletes playing just for the thrill of playing your best and winning. There is no expectations of huge paydays from the pros, and no over-analyzation of the media.

Congrats to BYU for a dominating win, and good luck with the rest of the season.

I was reading another article that had a similar theme and was extremely well written. I started to write a comment, but then it started to get so long that I decided to just write my own article.

In essence his article mentioned the Utah Attorney General’s anti-trust lawsuit against the BCS that should take place sometime this summer. To fully make sense of what I am saying you will need to read Jeremy’s article as well as the comments. Hopefully it will make some sense either way.

Do I think the BCS is unfair, absolutely.
Do I think this lawsuit will result in a playoff, or even a better system, no.

But, this is the best laid argument I have seen. Every other attempt to take down the BCS has been nothing more than a cryfest about how our team got left out and we should have gotten in, blah blah blah. The huge factor that continues to grow is that the Major BCS schools, meaning the ones that consistently have a title shot like USC, are saying we need a playoff.

What that says to me is that this is no longer simply a question of who should play in a BCS bowl, but that it has sincerely become a question of crowning a TRUE national champion. That is the argument that has needed to be raised to create change.

Let’s face it, the big conferences and networks are going to get their money one way or another. What I have really started to take issue with is declaring a national champion when there is a legitimate case for multiple other teams. If any major sport were to simply pick two teams based on polls and they played one game to determine the Super Bowl Champion, or the winner of the Stanley Cup, then there would be outrage. Why is college football the only exception to the rule in the world?

Of all the sporting events in the world, from pee wee sports, to the high school, to professional sports, and even to the Olympics, there is a playoff in place. Sure there is debate over what teams should make it, but now that I think about it, when was the last time you heard a country cry about not making it into the World Cup, or even the playoffs in major US sports? There is a system in place that makes sense and ultimately crowns a true champion.

While there will always be people making excuses about why their team didn’t win or why their rival did. However, there is no legitimate argument to take away their title.

Now the idea of sending the 11 conference champions plus 5 at-large bids to a playoff is completely stupid to me. There is no even remotely decent argument that the conference champion of C-USA, WAC, Ivy League, MAC, or even in some years the MWC champions have any place playing for a national champion. Last year evidenced that even the BCS conferences don’t always warrant a BCS bid. There is no reason to make it even that complicated.

I have written this before, but it could be very simple. You take the top 8, or 16 though I prefer 8, and put them against each other with their ranks as seeds. Add the Cotton and Holiday bowls, or others if you prefer, to the original 4 BCS bowls. They rotate yearly through first round games and the seminfinal games. Then you pick an entirely separate place, picked just like the Super Bowl and most leauges’ all-star games for the National Championship.

This creates even more money to spread around, and the major conferences would still get their cut because their teams would be the ones making it regularly. At the same time, smaller conferences would have just as much chance. There would be no argument that smaller teams don’t deserve it, because they would HAVE to schedule better teams to get ranked in the top 8. Going undefeated would not be enough for a non-BCS school.

I really don’t understand why they make it so complicated. Everyone in the world knows it is about money and nothing else. Don’t give me the time argument, because the national championship is already more than a week later than it used to be.

This may not be the best answer, but it seems like a legitimate one for me.

BYU has consistently had a strong softball team, and this year is no different. After winning in New Mexico over the weekend, they are now at 26-14 on the season, and 3-0 in conference play.

They feature a very potent offense that has been putting up big numbers all year. They have scored more than 10 runs 9 different times, and are consistently scoring 7-9 runs.

They also have a solid pitching staff, that has thrown 13 shutouts this year, and has only allowed more than 5 runs twice all season.

The highlight of the year in pitching came March 28 when Christine Zinanti threw a no-hitter. Her only walk came against the first batter of the game, who was hit by a pitch.

It is unfortunate that TCU doesn’t have a softball team, because that means there is no way I will get to see them play. Having been a softball coach, I look forward to any opportunity to watch a quality team play, and that is exactly what a BYU has this year.

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.

I decided to go over and watch the BYU vs. UCLA game at my coworker’s house. This isn’t the normal coworker. He’s an 86 (give or take a year) year old pharmacist. The guy is absolutely hilarious and I had a wonderful time watching the game. Of course, it was made even more wonderful watching BYU just clobber UCLA.

This 86 year old man couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful it was to watch BYU’s offensive line at work. Maybe in his short life he’d never seen a BYU offensive line.

All of that stuff aside, my favorite part of the BYU drubbing of UCLA was the first time that UCLA attempted a field goal and blocked it. I leaned over to my coworker and told him that BYU was going to block the field goal. I told him BYU had been practicing it and I just felt like BYU needed to prove the mess that was last week’s BYU vs. UW blocked extra point wasn’t an abnormality.

I couldn’t have been happier than I was at that moment as BYU in some small way seemed to vindicate themselves by blocking that first UCLA field goal.

Looking to Wyoming
Mendenhall took issue with a reporter’s premise that the Cougars should “cruise” past 2-1 Wyoming on Saturday, saying “I don’t think that ‘cruise’ and our philosophy here match.”

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?

As soon as I saw Washington on the schedule I was taken back to 1996 and the one blemish on our record that year. I remember watching that game and just dying at how they blew the game early and couldn’t recover. The difference this year is Washington is not nearly the same team. They are dead last in the Pac-10 in total defense, points scored and points allowed, and they are number nine in total offense with a whopping 242 yards. Pitta had almost that many by himself.

While I am not nearly as worried this year, the four fumbles last week sure didn’t instill any confidence. On the other hand, Washington got stomped pretty good last week by Oregon, and this is not the Oregon with Dennis Dixon. This game should be a nice step up from last week without being overwhelmed, but being a road game is the x-factor with BYU teams of late.

Time to kick back into high gear here on Crashutah. With only 16 days and counting it’s time to start posting a bit more on the prospects for the upcoming football season.

However, before I start blogging about BYU’s football season I have to share with all of you the funniest story coming out of fall camp. Basically it involves a verbal altercation between defensive coordinator Jamie Hill and redshirt freshman Jordan Pendleton (currently playing at safety).

Tuesday, Hill was a more central figure in sending — or was it accepting? — some heat.

He angrily told redshirt freshman safety Jordan Pendleton to keep moving to the locker room and not talk with reporters after practice. Something about not having “earned” that privilege. The impromptu policy didn’t mesh with the program’s usual all-access generosity with media.

The player chucked his helmet and, according to a couple of media members, muttered that Hill was off his Christmas card list. Or something like that.

Got to love BYU. Most places a few four letter words would be spoken along with a bit of chest bumping or some other display of manliness. BYU sticks to more simple things like taking people off their Christmas card list. Is there any question that BYU is a different culture than most Universities?

UPDATE: Here’s another take on what happened during the altercation. Still absolutely hilarious that this is news.

- The juicy news came after practice ended, when defensive coordinator Jaime Hill snapped at redshirt freshman defensive back Jordan Pendleton for doing an interview with the Tribune’s Jay Drew. With David Tafuna not practicing due to a head injury, Pendleton saw time with the first-team defense. Drew sought him out after practice – following BYU’s standard procedure – and began the interview when Hill yelled out Pendleton to get in the locker room. Hill, who also serves as the secondary coach, told the former Bingham High star that he needed to earn his keep on the field before being interviewed. According to Drew, Pendleton then called Hill a prick and went into the locker room.