I don't care if Utah is 12-0 or 0-12, I'll still be the biggest fan I can be. My cheering for the Utes is not dictated by the talent I see on the football field. However as a fan, I do feel the need to bitch when I feel the program is not living up to the level I think it should be living up to. Kyle Whittingham is paid a lot of money, more money than you and I will probably ever see in a lifetime, to coach this team to wins. That's his job and right now he's not doing it very well.

I'm sick and tired of being called a bandwagon fan because I don't conform to the notion that you're supposed to blindly follow your team, no matter how much they struggle. This is not just a sport of entertainment, or there would be no such thing as coaching contracts. This is a sport about winning and right now Utah isn't doing a good job of that. It does not make me less of a fan because I get pissed over what happens out there and I resent being told it does. You talk about how we whine and then you turn around and whine about how we're whining. Well if you expected us to all be grins after this loss, you're delusional. This was an embarrassing loss and you better believe I'm going to rant and rave about it. That's my job as a fan and I think my buying tickets to the events affords me that right. If the coaches don't like it, they shouldn't put themselves in the position to hear it. If the players don't like it, then they shouldn't go out and play the game. This isn't a pat on the butt and go on your marry way kind of game. This is college #%!@ing football and it's about one thing and that one thing is winning. If they don't win, they've failed at the reason why they're out there in the first place.

This is a game driven by emotions. If it weren't, none of us would be here today. This board is our outlet and we use it to express our thoughts and feelings on the matters pertaining to the Utes. In a dream world, we'd accept defeat and go the way of the French, but this ain't the dream world. This is real life and I'm not about to concede defeat solely based on the fact that there are 22-year old kids playing ball out there. If they can't stand the fire, they should never enter the kitchen and Kyle Whittingham and company knew that heading in. This isn't a game for lightweights and people that can't take criticism. There's a reason Whittingham is paid $700,000 and nearly all these players have scholarships to attend the University of Utah.

In the academia world, if you're a professor, you need to meet a high enough level to attain job security. If you're not competent in your work, the university lets you go. Likewise, a student that has a scholarship must adhere to strict academic regulations in order to continue that funding brought on via that scholarship. It should be no different for coaches and players and they're not going to get a pass because some fans believe you can't really root for your team if you criticize its leadership. If you wanted that, then you probably wouldn't have signed up here in the first place. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that a message board, especially after a loss, would not have a gleaming endorsement of the coaching staff. I'm a Utah fan and I'll always be a Utah fan, but I'm not about to sit idly by and watch the program that I take great pride in fall behind because some fans aren't content at other fans being a bit brutally honest toward the coaches.

If you feel Whittingham is a great coach and his assistants are great too, I'm glad. I'm glad you can accept that, but I can't. I'm in this game no matter how badly Utah plays, but I'll be kicking and screaming every time I see my team heading down a bad path. That's how I illustrate my fandom, you may not, but it's not right calling out those fans that can't accept the losing. We all love Utah football and I think that's the reason you're seeing so many people critical of what's happening this season. We don't want to see this program return to an era where no one cared and we were irrelevant. We'll speak up, criticize and hope to damn things will work out.

Go Utes!


Block U -- Utah Athletics Blog





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