As a U season ticket holder for years it was painful for me to have to be out of town during this game. But there are things more important than football, barely. I got my important business taken care of and managed to watch the entire game in the Wynn Resort’s sports book in Las Vegas.
First off, regardless of who won it was one HELL of a game. Both teams brought it. In the first quarter after the zoo scored two quick TD’s I was very worried that they were going to blow the Utes out at home. I’m not sure I would have been able to watch that kind of game without losing my lunch.
$100 richer
Byzoo was favored in vegas by 11 points. Anyone who has half a brain knows that this rivalry game usually is a close dog fight. So I plopped down $110.00 on Utah and I got 11 points. With the spread I easily won my bet and collected $210.00.
One hell of a game
The Utes played a pretty damn good game. They played better than I expected. They’ve made some dumb plays throughout the year and there were a few in this game, like the fumbled snap. Over all thought I thought they played better and more disciplined than I expected.
The utes had a few chances to score more points but weren’t able to do it. They missed a field goal and had THREE passes in the end zone hit receiver’s hands and end up on the ground. You gotta hand it to the zoo receivers. Their hands looked like they had glue on them. Unlike last year’s game where the zoo receivers seemed to drop just about everything, they caught most of their passes this year.
After the first 14 points the zoo really sputtered. But havinging watched this rivalry for my whole life I’ve learned that when you are dealing with the zoo it’s never over until it’s over. For years the zoo has had a way of scoring lots of points in the 4th quarter too eek out a victory vs many of their opponents including the utes. That’s one way I grew to hate them even more. I was sweatinng and obviously for good reason.
Who does Beck think he is? Doug Flutie?
As I said in many posts, the Ute pass defense is their weakness. But even worse in this game was their pass rush. Beck rolled around in the pocket like doug flutie forever, especially that last play. The Utes didn’t get to him close to enough, though they did put a few good hits on him.
Bailed out a few times
One of the very frustrating things about this game was how the zoo was bailed out by some lucky events. There were a couple of pass interference calls (not blaming the refs) which got the zoo crucial first downs. The worst one was that 3rd and 24. What a frigging lucky thing for the zoo to go from 3rd and 24 to first down. If utah doesn’t interfere there, that might have been the ball game. If I’m the defensive coach I’m warning the DB’s to be very careful at that point. But what do I know….???
There were also a couple of missed tackles in that last drive which allowed the zoo player to go out of bounds and stop the clock. A wrap-up on a tackle or two and the clock keeps rolling and it’s ball game.
It’s all about the little things in football. The little things like TACKLING and playing smart. Little things like NOT leaving a receiver WIDE OPEN in the end zone. These are things that a well coached team does and a Whit team does not.
The “prevent yourself from winning defense”
I’m NOT a fan of the prevent defense. The prevent in this case did one thing for the Utes: It prevented them from winning.
Return to glory? Yeah, right.
What is Utah ranked really? 98th or something? So I’d take it easy on the “glory” comments, puhlease. Eeking out a victory with no time left on the clock against the 98th ranked team isn’t exactly winning the super bowl.
Zoo fans can enjoy the win and show us why we hate them so much with their pompous comments and bad sport attitude. That’s another reason many peoople hate the zoo is because many of their fans are arrogant aholes.
So congratulations zoobies. That was a heartbreaker of a loss for Ute fans and byu haters. You’ve got bragging rights for a year. Go down to the ice cream store and pick up a big ice cream sundae to celebrate. Proudly wear your Y hat and be sure to have your woman wear her potato sack dress and white doiley around her neck for you. SEXY! You deserve it.
I’ve got another byzoo scar in my sports skin and another reason to hate the zoo more (which I didn’t think was possible hehe).