I will try not to be too negative in this post, but I’m really in a soul-searching moment with UTAH football. My negative feelings about the season actually started early this spring when I got my invoice for my ticket renewal. It was a 26% increase. That really rocked me, since I didn’t feel that I was getting a commensurate increase in value.
Fast forward to the season when we looked average against Weber, god-awful against a decent, but hardly good NIU team. If possible we looked worse against Washington, which I chalked up to playing, you know, Washington. After that game, I’ve never felt so defeated as a UTAH fan. And that includes coming of age in the horrible Utah football of the 80s. My wife was mystified why I was so upset after the UW game. Frankly I was surprised as well. I was in a funk for days. At the end of the day, my feelings came down to the fact that it’s the same story, different year. It’s groundhog day. Season after season. Good defense. Inept offense. There is no end in sight that I can see.
Now to the title of the post. As I try to evaluate my feelings about this latest disappointment, I wonder if I’m going about this all wrong. What reason do we expect UTAH to be anything better than “competitive” in the PAC12? Is it because of 2004? Or 2008 when we beat a disinterested Alabama team? Or because when we were strong in the MWC we could beat the occasional PAC10 team sandwiched between crappy teams like Wyoming and New Mexico? We don’t recruit anything better than middling in the league. We don’t have the pedigree frankly of any of the other league teams. Whatever “it” is that good teams have that makes them great, we don’t have “it.” Just as we seem to be turning the corner there is an injury, a boneheaded mistake, lack of execution, perplexing playcalling, or an unfathomable call by a referee. There is something missing in this program that will take them from good to great. Maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. Or maybe not bad luck, but an absence of good luck.
As miserable as I feel, I can only imagine how hard these times must be for the players and coaches who literally dedicate their lives to this program. My hat’s off to them. I respect the hell out of them for their competitive fire, effort, and dedication. I hope they have the ability to stay positive.
As for me, I think that until the body of work proves otherwise, I’m going to downshift my expectations to try to be happy with what we get. It’s probably going to be much less fun. But hopefully it will level out some of the misery too.
Go Utes! Let’s keep the next game close, shall we?
Fast forward to the season when we looked average against Weber, god-awful against a decent, but hardly good NIU team. If possible we looked worse against Washington, which I chalked up to playing, you know, Washington. After that game, I’ve never felt so defeated as a UTAH fan. And that includes coming of age in the horrible Utah football of the 80s. My wife was mystified why I was so upset after the UW game. Frankly I was surprised as well. I was in a funk for days. At the end of the day, my feelings came down to the fact that it’s the same story, different year. It’s groundhog day. Season after season. Good defense. Inept offense. There is no end in sight that I can see.
Now to the title of the post. As I try to evaluate my feelings about this latest disappointment, I wonder if I’m going about this all wrong. What reason do we expect UTAH to be anything better than “competitive” in the PAC12? Is it because of 2004? Or 2008 when we beat a disinterested Alabama team? Or because when we were strong in the MWC we could beat the occasional PAC10 team sandwiched between crappy teams like Wyoming and New Mexico? We don’t recruit anything better than middling in the league. We don’t have the pedigree frankly of any of the other league teams. Whatever “it” is that good teams have that makes them great, we don’t have “it.” Just as we seem to be turning the corner there is an injury, a boneheaded mistake, lack of execution, perplexing playcalling, or an unfathomable call by a referee. There is something missing in this program that will take them from good to great. Maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. Or maybe not bad luck, but an absence of good luck.
As miserable as I feel, I can only imagine how hard these times must be for the players and coaches who literally dedicate their lives to this program. My hat’s off to them. I respect the hell out of them for their competitive fire, effort, and dedication. I hope they have the ability to stay positive.
As for me, I think that until the body of work proves otherwise, I’m going to downshift my expectations to try to be happy with what we get. It’s probably going to be much less fun. But hopefully it will level out some of the misery too.
Go Utes! Let’s keep the next game close, shall we?
