The Des News had an article today on Utah's three straight weeks on Big Monday. It went on to have Clevey say how that really put them at a disadvantage because teams had SOOOOO much time to prepare for them. I'm sick of these excuses and all the other BS that he spews out. Why can't he just say "we got beat by a better team", more than likely they would have lost the same games if it had been the traditional Thurs./ Sat. games for the Utes.

Just my 2 freakin' cents

MalamUTE

With that thought process the Cougs should be a solid pick to beat the Utes since they have had a full week to prepare for Utah. Meanwhile poor Rick had to worry about the Lobo squad. Face it Steve you could have a whole month to prepare and Fresno, New Mexico, UTEP and Utah would still beat you.

Seems to me I remember Coach Majerus making similar comments about nobody having to prepare for the Coogs during the 1-25 campaign. He was hoping the Coogs would improve so the opponents couldn't just concentrate on the Utes. The door has to swing both ways, doesn't it?

One big difference, you DIDN'T have to prepare for that BYU team. Teams can't overlook Utah, if they do they get beat by 25 instead of 15. During BYU's 1-26 year no one prepared for them, you could have beat them with some of the Intramural squads at most Universities. Sure, teams get a little more time for BYU, but they can't forget about Utah, when BYU was really bad, they could totally forget about BYU, it took no preperation to beat them. Oh, and one more thing, if it's that big of a deal, Cleveland had over 2 days extra to prepare for Utah this week...so he best have come up with something good.

Fresno did not have extra time to prepare for BYU?
(that is the game Cleveland suggests it cost them -- neither UTEP nor NM were winnable).

The fact is, they did. Tarkanian mentioned in an article from the Fresno Bee (I included the link on an earlier post) that he was expecting a good effort against the cougs because they were so well prepared. Who knows who would have won the Saturday BYU Fresno game if Fresno had been beat on by Utah on Thursday before they came to Provo? But, we do know that Fresno did win the game the way things were scheduled.

When you are the coach of a marginal team, you have got to believe that any factor that pushes the balance slightly either way could make a difference in the outcome. It certainly won't change the outcome in every game but it could be the difference in a close game. That is all he is saying.

Also, Cleveland has to convince his team that he believes that they can beat other teams. If he simply announces that they got beat by better team all the time, his team might lose the confidence that they can play with these teams the next time around. He is playing psychological games to get his players to believe they have a chance to beat some of these teams that beat them the first go around.

(almost) Finally, while I do believe it is one of many factors that could influence the outcome of a game (not the factor), the utes have earned the right to play on big monday and reep the benefits of any real or perceived advantages related to the scheduling. It is interesting to note though that when Reid was the coach he hated monday games because byu could not practice on sunday, so, you guessed it, the cougs were at a disadvantage because the other teams had more time to prepare.

Finally (and I mean finally this time), fortunately for the utes, the cougs did not have an entire week to prepare because they don't practice on sunday and did not practice on monday. So, I guess the utes still have a chance :)

See you tommorow night. I'm going to be screaming my guts out.

Go cougs!

BYUprof

Last modified .