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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.