In other news, Brad Stevens is the best coach in college basketball and it's hardly debatable at this point.
by TheBaron 2013-01-20 00:14:02
A FAR worse basketball school, with far worse resources, accomplishing DOUBLE what Majerus did, but taking only four breathtaking years as a HC to do it. Now, in only his 6th year, Butler has beaten THREE top 10 teams so far this season after losing star player after star player from their NCAA championship game teams and replacing them with somewhat decent, but most certainly nothing special on paper recruiting classes.
He has coached three wins over top 10 teams this year, a feat only Coach K at Duke has equaled, but he's doing it with 1/1,000,000th of the recruiting and financial resources of Duke/Kentucky/NC/etc. The more you think about it, the more impossible it sounds. He has a real chance to end up being the best coach college basketball has ever seen. His career thus far is without precedent by the most comically gargantuan of margins.
Zoobville is abuzz with claims that Kyle Van Noy is coming back for next season.
by TheBaron 2012-12-31 09:28:59
This would come as a huge surprise because I know for a fact he has been telling certain teammates for months that he's going to declare for the draft after this season. This would be a last minute complete 180 and a major, major coup for Bronco. Why Van Noy would spend two seconds listening to Bronco's advice about how to get to and excel in the NFL is beyond me.
Personally, I think it would be a mistake for him to come back for his senior year. He is not going to develop - skill-wise or physically - any further by staying at BYU. He has already maxed out what that staff can do for him. Of course, there is always the risk of a major injury that comes with another full year of workouts, practices, and games. For Star, the risk to reward ratio was worth it and playing another season at Utah is going to end up making him millions of dollars more than he would have made had he came out last season. I just don't see things playing out like that for Van Noy, considering BYU's NFL track record.
Sure, he wasn't going to get drafted in the first two rounds if he declared for this year's draft, but he definitely would have been drafted and he would have gotten a fair shot at making it. Instead, if the zoobie rumors are to be believed, he's going to spend next season getting his ass kicked and end his career without a bowl game. (Cue some wise ass saying that is how Star's senior season went, forgetting that Utah was supposed to be a serious contender this season and BYU is expected to have a tough go of it in 2013.)
Regardless, the guy just makes plays and has a knack for those plays being game changers. He has put that team on his back and personally won multiple games for BYU over the last two seasons. I would rather him not come back because he is an NFL talent and I don't want to see the zoobs helped by holding on to what little NFL talent they have.
This feels like a hail marry for Bronco to keep things respectable next season, considering it will be the toughest SOS in BYU history (by a mile) and they lose a massive number of players this off-season. With Hill's knee getting blown out and BYU's QB related offensive struggles, I can't help but wonder if Tanner Mangum is going to suddenly get talked into "serving a mission" by playing quarterback at BYU, like so many before him. It will be interesting to watch what Bronco is able to pull off if he's really got both Hoffman and Van Noy turning down the NFL for next season's trail of tears.
It's crazy to think that Texas A&M and Mississippi State can both go 9-3 in the vaunted SEC, yet not have a single quality win to share between them.
by TheBaron 2012-11-03 11:26:15
The whole "week in, week out" argument for SEC strength of schedule is a joke. Texas A&M's best win is a 2 point last second squeaker over a WAC team. Mississippi State's best win is over a Sun Belt team. The SEC in the middle and the bottom is so laughably overrated that teams can get away with scheduling four automatic OOC wins against pillow soft cupcakes and go to a bowl game as long as they can beat Kentucky and Auburn. Manage to beat Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas and you can claim to have had a special season without having a single decent win.
Please don't seek it out, but I unwittingly clicked on a link to a new article by our good pal and reviled douchette, Lya. The entire thing was one long "Haha! Utah sucks and can't compete in the PAC-12!" self-congratulatory middle finger to the fan base. She even took a dump on our BCS trophies. Not surprisingly, it is chock full of revisionist history, obvious bias, and straw men.
I know the constant complaining about Lya gets old, but she truly is an angry, spiteful bitch that has based her entire career to date on pissing off Ute fans. At least Wrubell and Harmon do it out of love for BYU, first and foremost. Lya just passionately hates the U and everything to do with it. I wish someone could get a few drinks in her and find out why. The day she "moves on" or is replaced will be a day worth celebrating twice.
1) Washington
2) California
3) Vanderbilt
4) Auburn
5) Kentucky 6) Utah
7) Arkansas
8) Missouri
9) Arizona
10) Michigan
According to Sagarin's formula - the most widely used and trusted, Utah has played the 6th toughest schedule in the country to date, resulting in 3 losses. For comparison, UCLA is #52 (with 2 losses), USC is #26 (with 1 loss), ASU is #42 (with 1 loss), BYU is #87 (with 2 losses), and Utah State is #79 (with 2 losses).
UCLA and BYU may be 4-2, but they have had relatively easy schedules and still managed to lose all of their road games against legitimate opponents, just like Utah. The only real separation is Utah getting torched at home by two future top 10 overall draft picks in Barkley and Lee, which is a fate that awaits UCLA at the end of the season. Plus, there's all that playing the sixth toughest schedule in all of college football business.
The Bronco confrontation histrionics on display by the zoobs and zoob media might be the single biggest overreaction in rivalry history.
by TheBaron 2012-09-17 18:19:20
Now that we have clear audio and video, you can see why it is always a bad idea to run with a story before all of the facts are known.
An extremely drunk Utah fan rushes the field after an emotional victory, finds himself face to face with Bronco Mendenhall, head coach of his hated rival, and says "Bronco, you suck! Bronco, you suck. What can you say? What can you say?" Bronco acts like he is going to get tough on him, but realizes that would be a criminal act and walks away like the Utah fan was already doing himself.
A video clip with unintelligible audio surfaces and zoobs (both the cougarboard and local media variety) run wild with it, villainizing and attacking the Utah fan with virtually no knowledge of what he said or did. Now a quality clip surfaces and it turns out the Utah fan said nothing over the line, threatened no one, and said nothing that hasn't been said before by thousands upon thousands of both Utah and BYU fans.
This whole thing is a farce and a complete non-issue. I hope the fan says, unashamed, that he got caught up in the heat of the moment and yelled "Bronco - you suck!" and he doesn't regret it one bit. BIG FUCKING DEAL. On a scale of 1-10 for inappropriate fan behavior towards the opposing team and fan base, this rates about a 2. Get the fuck over it.
If the media keeps up their attacks now that the truth is out, it will be further confirmation that they are worthless, pathetic tabloid trash, desperate to do anything they can to deflect attention from the fact that Utah keeps thrashing BYU and they are powerless to stop it; even when the refs gift them unearned opportunity after unearned opportunity.
This whole thing has turned out to be a tempest in a teapot-cum-witch hunt.
Only one coach in BYU history can claim a winning record against Utah. Nine different Utah coaches can claim a winning record against BYU. LaVell was an anomaly.
Every year a few zoobs bust out the selective statistics "proving" BYU's rivalry domination and overall superiority.
by TheBaron 2012-09-14 23:37:24
In the end, the only statistic either side cares about come game day is who won and who lost.
Everybody remembers 54-10 like it was yesterday. Everybody has heard that Utah has won 7 out of the last 10 games. Everybody is aware that Utah holds a commanding lead in the all-time series (well, everybody except the zoobies that believe football was invented in 1972), but not everybody fully appreciates how we got to 55-34-4 (or 52-31-4 if you go with BYU's claim the series started in 1922).
In a series spanning 116 years, BYU dominated a stretch of exactly 21 years; no more, no less. 21 years out of 116. From 1972 through 1992, BYU went 19-2 against Utah. During what was simultaneously BYU's golden era and Utah's dark ages, BYU dominated. It should come as no surprise, as that's what BYU has been doing since the day LaVell stepped foot in Provo - play against cupcakes and take them to the woodshed. And so they did, nearly every year.
Outside of that 21 year stretch, Utah has been the one dictating the terms of the rivalry. Using BYU's 1922 series start date, Utah was 38-5-4 against BYU before LaVell showed up. Since McBride righted the ship in 1993, Utah is 12-7 against BYU, for a winning percentage just north of 63%. With Utah winning 70% over the last decade, the momentum has been shifting even further back towards Utah. Zoobs call it a temporary run of bad luck, but statisticians call it "regression to the mean".
If one talked to the zoobs they'd swear it's still 1984, with BYU being the superior program and still on top. Truth is, they haven't been on top since Bush Sr. was leaving office and gasoline could still be purchased for less than $1/gallon. BYU's run ended a long time ago, but Wrubell and Harmon forgot to tell them.
Sometimes reading about something doesn't have the same impact as seeing it. In that spirit, a couple of nights ago I got bored and copy/pasted the win/loss table from Wikipedia into Excel and graphed it. Unlike zoobs, I didn't use any selective statistics and I didn't skew the scale of the axes. I created a formula to track each school's all-time winning percentage year over year and I spread the results over BYU's date range of 1922-2011.
Seeing it all at once really cuts through the zoobie bullshit and puts the series into perspective. Before we go to bed and dream of another Ute victory, I give you results the most productive 15 minutes I've had since the start of football season:
Jesus drank alcohol and never committed a sin in his life. Joseph Smith drank alcohol and it wasn't a sin. TheBaron drinks alcohol and therefore he is a sinner that won't be invited to God's house to watch 1984 replays with Jesus, Joseph, and the rest of the gang.
I always thought MiP stood for Madrasah in Provostan. The -stan is my favorite part and conspicuously missing.
Technically all schools are madrasahs, but colloquially madrasah is used almost exclusively to reference religious schools that indoctrinate their pupils with extremist rhetoric and an in-group, out-group worldview. While BYU is LDS instead of Muslim, it certainly fits the description of a madrasah.
A young player gets some playing time and lights it up. His trajectory projects through the roof and everyone gets excited for the future. He shows further signs of delivering on that promise and excitement turns into expectations. People start thinking about how they are going to spend their prize money before the winner is announced.
Then the player goes down with an unfortunate injury. The player busts his ass to return and everybody thinks about the guys who have come back from catastrophic injuries in better shape than ever (see: Drew Brees.) We have world class doctors and elite strength coaches. Like Drew, our guy will be the exception.
Then reality sets in and people don't want to accept the bad news. The player is not the same guy he was before and is unlikely to ever get back to where he was, let alone resume his trajectory. Denial lasts for a time and then anger and frustration take over. Some people are ready to feed the player to the wolves in spite of his every effort to recover. Others insist it is a foregone conclusion he will come back better than ever in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Jordan was unfortunate enough to complete this cycle multiple times. All he ever did was give us his best effort. In return he got a lot of anger from fans that were pissed that his best effort fell short of returning to mid-2010 form. Some guys come back full-strength, but most never do. Jordan didn't. I know for a fact it wasn't from lack of effort. He had the height, brain, and talent to be a college QB, but not the durability. Nobody could have foreseen this outcome two years ago; not even Mevsauce. At that point his durability was not a question and the sky was the limit.
Not everything goes according to plan. Hell, most things don't. I genuinely appreciate that Jordan came here and gave it his all, even if it turned out that he has congenitally weak shoulders. People forget how promising of a recruit he was. People forget that he turned the 2009 season around and torched Cal in a bowl game as a true freshman. People forget how dominant he was in 2010 before tearing his labrum.
Hell, the guy came in and led an epic comeback against BYU with a torn labrum. Everybody remembers Burton's block, but people forget that there wouldn't have been a Burton block if it wasn't for Jordan putting his blown out shoulder on the line because he refused to let those 6-5 shit stains come in to RES, play their game of the year, and steal one on an off day for Utah. He left that game, had surgery, and began the recovery process with optimism and resolve, as did we.
The guy gave it his all and fell short in the end, but not without a lot of success along the way. His body failed him, but he wasn't a failure. I guarantee that none of us wish it turned out differently half as much as Jordan does. It is time to move on, but not without a HUGE thank you to Jordan for coming here, gambling with his body for the silly game we all love, and walking away physically broken. Booing fans and message board assholes aside, he is a Utah man and I appreciate what he did here regardless of how it ended.
Just had a second set of tickets pulled out from under me.
by TheBaron 2012-09-07 13:23:19
I didn't think I was going to be able to make the game, but I found out last night that my conflicting event was changed. If anybody has two tickets they'd like to sell me for face value, preferably GA, please boardmail me ASAP. Time is of the essence as I'm still in SLC and I don't plan on driving to Logan without a guarantee of tickets.
I was going to buy Utah State tickets weeks ago, but a scheduling conflict came up that would have made it impossible to get to Logan in time.
by TheBaron 2012-09-06 22:25:22
I just found out a couple of hours ago that the conflict is no longer a conflict and we can make it after all. Naturally, the game is now sold out in spite of USU almost never selling out. At least it will be on ESPN and the only cost will be a beer run.
I have access to the PAC-12 Network through an online streaming log-in, but I'm watching the SJSU @Stanford game via a pirated internet feed because it is significantly more stable than the PAC-12 Network feed.
The official, legitimate feed keeps pausing to buffer, randomly skipping forward several seconds, randomly skipping backward seconds, etc. I have tried Firefox, IE, and Chrome with no improvement. I have tested my bandwidth and ping and both are fantastic. The problems seem to be on their end.
In addition to being a pathetic failure by the PAC-12 Network, it is especially frustrating because the pirated feed looks crappy and the official feed looks fantastic... 4-5 seconds at a time.
If you only click on one cougarboard link per year, this is the one to click. 100% TIC, but also 100% accurate. Absolutely hilarious no matter how many times this guy does it. I love a guy that can laugh at his own culture, even if he is a BYU fan.
Before anybody judges me for reading cougarboard, it's game week. I'm so desperate for football I am considering reading the Tribune and Deseret News, which are several notches worse than cougarboard.
"Everyone though, even the reddest of Utes, knows that if it were not for BYU’s religious affiliation, it would be the Cougars enjoying the fat of the land in the PAC-12, not Utah."
Between family and friends, I know well over 100 Utes and none of them - not a single one - believe the fantasy you wrote. No matter how many times you stomp your feet like a toddler and cry religious persecution, the fact will forever remain that the PAC chose Utah over BYU. Utah brings: superior location, superior football history, superior basketball history, more NCAA national championships, a higher ceiling, superior graduate programs, a superior research profile, Nobel prizes, a high likelihood of AAU membership in the next few years, superior cultural fit, less baggage, less entitlement, no history of discrimination based on race or sexual orientation... I'll stop here before the list gets unwieldy.
I know no BYU fans reading this post will believe anything I wrote, but the truth doesn't require your acceptance to be true. Larry Scott and the presidents of the PAC know the truth and chose accordingly, and that is all that will ever matter. Regardless of how many times you, Dick Harmon, Lee Benson, Greg Wrubell, Kurt Kragthorpe, et al. try to rewrite history to soothe the cognitive dissonance BYU fans are feeling, they can't change what happened.
Utah was chosen for PAC-12 membership and BYU was rejected.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
What are the odds the "moderator" approves it? I'm going with 0.000000000001%e-1,000.
A lot of us had a chuckle at the rivalry-related data in this fairly recent poll of Utahns - http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PP P_Release_UT_0721.pdf - and how BYU already has less in-state fans than Utah in every age group other than 65+. Well, it appears Holmoe and co. have taken notice. In spite of being in the envious position of dominating the spendthrift, conspicuously awkward, and senior citizen demographics, BYU is being proactive about regaining the ground they've lost to Utah and they have a plan: lock 'em down while they're young, before a friend at school teaches them the superior ways of the crimson.
I kid you not - for $89 a family of four gets four BYU t-shirts, tickets to eight men's basketball games, and four football games. Yes, four football games, which is 3/4 of a season ticket, and eight basketball games, which is nearly 1/2 of a season ticket, for $89. Total. That's $22.25 a person, or roughly the cost of a single Utah t-shirt. The only requirement is that at least one of the four users is between 3-13 years old. I would say they are giving away the farm, but considering that only 70-odd blessed souls have bought the deal I have no choice but to conclude they are selling the farm for market value.
In all seriousness - four t-shirts, four football games, and eight basketball games for $89 total has to be the cheapest deal of any program in the country, and probably by a large margin. Between this and the fact that they couldn't sell out their small allotment for the Utah game this year of all years... I am at a loss for words. Has 54-10 and the PAC invite seriously caused this much damage to The Zoo, or is some other, less obvious, factor at play here?
I know BYU in the past has done Hogi Yogi 2 for 1 coupons and given away free tickets to entire LDS wards in order to fill their stadium in down years, but this has got to be a nadir for the pussies of Provo. It couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of self-fellating douches. After all of the shit they gave us for not being able to fill RES during the dark ages of Utah football, their recent struggles have been a soothing balm of karmic justice. I hope it never ends, but am mentally prepared for when it does. Until then,
*Before anyone castigates me for using a thread title with a pedophilia-related double entendre, they should know I came up with about a dozen significantly more vulgar ones, but ultimately gave in to better judgement.
With only one player drafted this year, I've read a few posts that talk about how Utah has some serious work to do to catch up to the rest of the PAC in the talent department. I understand that most Utes were hoping to see more than "just" Bergstrom get drafted this year; I was one of them. While it is mildly disappointing, it is always good to keep things in perspective. According to ESPN's college-sorted player list, here is how Utah stacks up against our PAC-12 peers in the NFL talent department:
#1) USC - 53
#2) Cal - 33
#3) Utah - 26
#4) Oregon - 25
#5) Stanford - 23
#6) UCLA - 22
#7*) Arizona State - 21
#7*) Oregon State - 21
#9) Arizona - 17
#10) Colorado - 13
#11) Washington - 11
#12) Washington State - 10
So Utah comes in at #3 after only a single season in the PAC-12 and only a single player drafted in 2012. Considering our strong upward trajectory in the talent and recruiting department, coupled with the fact that I am confident we will have at least two players going the UDFA route this year end up getting NFL paychecks for the 2012-13 season, I am not so disappointed with our "weak" draft performance this season. Oh yeah - look for one Starlite Lotulelei to go in the first round in 2013. It is always a good day to be a Ute.
**DISCLAIMER** I did not go through each school's list with a fine-toothed comb and update it with any players ESPN has accidentally left off or incorrectly included for whatever reason. It has been updated since this weekend's draft, but I doubt it is 100% perfectly accurate. They have been keeping on top of things pretty well, though. Kemoeatu is already off of our list since being cut by the Steelers and not being picked up by anybody as of right now. They added Taplin-Ross after he signed a future contract last season that took him off of Dallas' practice squad and puts him on the 53 man this coming fall. Guys like Asiata and Cox DO belong on the list because of the way the Vikings and Patriots, respectively, categorized their status with the team. When a player is placed on IR instead of the practice squad, they are "protected" from other team's poaching them as they are technically "on the team" during that time, in spite of not counting against the 53 man and not being eligible to play. If this list is not 100% accurate, it's damn close. I'm sure someone on here will nit pick it, but I'm not going to.
With the nationals going on, I figure now is as good of a time to ask as any.
by TheBaron 2012-04-20 22:26:20
I saw Megan Marsden on the ABC 4 redzone show a couple of weeks ago and she was talking up the squad, but she also made a comment about how Florida's "entire line-up on most events includes national team members and Olympians." She went on to say "we feel really good that our team is made up of a lot of level 10 gymnasts, which is a notch underneath the elite level..." (implying that Florida has "elite level" gymnasts that are higher rated than Utah's level 10 gymnasts.) She kept talking about how Utah's gymnasts are generally not elite, as if we are competing on an uneven playing field against stacked squads at other schools. "We are doing a good job as being one of the top programs in the country without much in terms of Olympians."
So my question is this - with Utah's rich history and tradition, with the #1 attended and supported squad in the country, with strong funding and near legend status coaches, with so many all-time streaks and records held by Utah, is there some reason that Utah generally has to "make do" with level 10 rated gymnasts while other schools have "national team members and Olympians"? Am I completely misinterpreting Megan's comments? Are the SEC schools just straight up out-recruiting us, or is Utah somehow handicapped with who we can recruit? Is it intentional that the Marsdens go after "level 10" girls instead of "elite level" girls? Do elite girls scoff at the idea of committing to Utah in spite of the Red Rock's incredible credentials?
Forgive my extreme ignorance about gymnastics. I honestly have no idea whatsoever about gym recruiting. Megan's comments got me curious and I figure some of the gym experts on here could explain it to me.
Surprisingly good interview from the local media. Clocking in at over 48 minutes, it's a long one, but the entire thing is filled with valuable nuggets. I have to admit, every time I hear him talk I come away feeling more confident in his drive, intelligence, and abilities than I did beforehand. Is this really the incompetent program destroyer I keep hearing about, or is it possible some Utes have an anti-Krystko agenda? I suggest listening to the whole thing and deciding for yourself.
And to think, I actually felt bad for all of the players that were going to be asked to not come back next semester.
by TheBaron 2012-03-03 16:56:28
Thanks for trying, but you're about as qualified for this job as I am to engineer a bridge. Have fun playing off the bench in the Southland Conference or the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (The mighty MAAC). This is just shameful.
A random idea I wouldn't completely hate if we were ever forced to drop the Ute affiliation some years into the future.
by TheBaron 2011-12-31 00:43:25
First and foremost, I hate the idea of being called the "Utah Hawks." HATE. Even more than "Utah Hawks", I hate the Swoop logo, as pictured insultingly on the front page of the Sun Bowl store. I think I'm going to be sick after looking at that.
If at some point in the future we are forced to drop the Ute name, there are a couple of red-tailed hawk related things I might be able to live with, if only for the uniform idea I'm about to post. If we were to go by the "Utah Redtails" and make it very clear that while the mascot was a red-tailed hawk, on no uncertain terms is the word 'hawk' to be used when discussing Utah, I could tolerate it better. If the word hawk had to be used, I am much more comfortable being called the Utah Chickenhawks than I am the Utah Hawks. (FYI - red-tailed hawks are also known as chickenhawks. Honestly.) If we were to go with the "Utah Red-tailed Hawks", I guarantee 90% of the time people will shorten it to the "Utah Hawks." "Chickenhawks" will not get shortened, which is a plus to me. Something about the generic "hawk" just rubs me in all of the wrong ways possible.
Onto the reason I might be able to live with it - the uniform potential. Imagine this sweet helmet idea:
but with the layout oriented like Michigan's helmet:
Then make the feathers on the helmet look just like the tail feathers of an actual chickenhawk (red-tailed hawk):
Of course, the helmet color would be crimson. That could be a fairly cool, recognizable and original design. The W&M Tribe helmet design from the picture above was a concept done by a uniform design hobbyist and posted online for feedback/positive reinforcement. It wasn't done by Nike and isn't owned by Nike, in spite of the designer including Nike logos in his photoshop creation. This idea is different enough not to infringe on any current uniform design I'm aware of.
Because Utah would no longer be the Utes and the feathers would legitimately be based entirely on an animal mascot and not a headdress, there isn't anything un-PC about it and nobody could ever say anything. There would be no question it is based on the tail of a chickenhawk and anyone that claimed it looks like a headdress could be told to eat a dick. Of course, it would look exactly like a bad ass headdress and would be awesome.
Any thoughts? Maybe some anger for me daring to consider the day some random BS complaint kills the Ute name? Lets hear it.
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