Tuesday, November 22. 2011Red, Blue And Pigskin
It's Rivalry week baby. Finally 11 weeks of the season are done with, leading up to this week everyone has been waiting for. It's time for the annual rivalry game.
Wait, oh yea, not so much anymore. The Holy War has already been played, with a Utah dismantling of the Cougars, 54-10, in week three. This year for Rivalry week Utah gets a home game against Colorado. A team, that no matter how hard the Pac-12 tries, or no matter which lame name they give the game (Rumble in the Rockies, awful), Colorado and Utah are not rivals. As for the Cougars, their big Rivalry week opponent is.... lethargy. The Cougars don't have an opponent this week, as they have their second bye of November, although it won't be their easiest week of the season, that belongs to Idaho State week. You could say this is a negative side effect of change. Stadium Bookend
On September 30, 1972, in front of a crowd of 20,600 people, the Washington State Cougars opened up their brand new Martin Stadium with a 20-6 loss against the Utes. On Monday Washington State University began major renovations on Martin Stadium, meaning Saturday's OT loss to the Utes are the last game at the current iteration of Martin Stadium. I can't say what happened in 1972, but the crowd of just over 16,000 at the game on Saturday had to brave a game that started with some snow, dried up, and then turned into a white out blizzard. The first half of the game, the two teams combined to put offensive football back 20 years. The Utes managed to play arguably their worst offensive half of the season. They couldn't do anything offensively with the football, and what few positive plays they managed to successfully complete, they immediately followed it up with boneheaded and stupid penalties. The only truly successful offensive play of the first half for the Utes was an 47 yard touchdown pass. Completed by the punter on a fake pass. Crazily enough, during halftime when the snow started really coming down the game turned into a high scoring shootout, with Jon Hays making some great, clutch passes, and John White doing what John White does. Unfortunately this was also when Utah's defense decided to play it's worst half of the season. Twice the defense gave up 10 point leads, as they switched from their man press defense to a soft zone, and even a near prevent defense late. Utah's defense went without a sack the entire game, and although they did hit Washington State's QB a lot, enough that he was hospitalized with a lacerated liver, in truth the Utes didn't get much defensive pressure. Fortunately with 10 seconds to go, and pass to the end zone was just short enough, that the WR had to come out of the end zone to catch the ball at the 1, forcing the Cougars to settle for a game tying field goal. In OT Mo Lee intercepted Halliday, and the Utes kicked the winning field goal. Chugging Along Another game, another massive workload, another great game. Although John White was contained in the first half with a measly 49 yards, the second half was a diffferent story. White ended the game with 42 carries for 186 yards. He also added two TD's. One of them a 57 yard scamper. The other was a measly three yard run, setup on the play before by his refusal to go down, or step out of bounds, and one legged hopping for extra yards. The two TD's have tied the Utes single season rushing TD record. The 186 yards put White at 1,377 yards on the season. That currently makes him 1st in the Pac-12 and 5th in the nation. Although, how he wasn't a Doak Walker semifinalist I'll never know. Those 1,377 yards leaves him 131 yards away from breaking the Utah single season rushing yards record. White is averaging 125 yards per game on the season. Since the Pitt game, that average is 146 yards per game. During the current 4 game win streak, it's 166.7 yards per game. All this means is there is a really good chance he breaks the record on Saturday. However, with a bowl game still to be played, he simply needs to average 65.5 yards per game for the next two. I'm really not sure that it can be put into words, exactly how valuable White has been to this team. Not Feline Friendly The Utes this season have not been friendly to the feline community. This year the Utes have beat two types of Cougars, Bobcats, Panthers, and Wildcats. Of the Utes 7 wins, 5 have come against teams with feline mascots. Well At Least It's Over The only thing of note about the BYU/New Mexico State game, is that it means that BYU's awful, boring November schedule is now at an end. A Month that saw two stinker games, and two bye weeks. As for the game itself there's not a whole lot to say. Jake Heaps played a solid B game. He still showed tendencies to overthrow his WR and lock on to his target. About all we learned from this game, is that when Heaps doesn't get any pressure on him, which NMSU couldn't do all game, Heaps can lead a team down the field. Somehow this game was actually close after about 20 minutes which itself was probably inconceivable. But eventually, the Cougars did what they were supposed to do, and finish off yet another garbage opponent. Now the Cougars get to rest up for a season finale on the road next week against Hawaii. I'll Be Honest, This Sucks One truly negative aspect of having the Rivalry game in September is that it's not Rivalry week in September. Rivalry week is now. Only now, we don't get to enjoy the build up around Thanksgiving towards the rivalry. Instead BYU is preparing for a bye. While it's good for the Students who wouldn't have really been able to be involved anyways, since BYU is out of school for the holidays, it still has left a huge void. Instead Utah is preparing for Colorado. A terrible Colorado that is. In fact, Colorado is so terrible, they make New Mexico State look good. The Pac-12 keeps trying to tell us this is the new rivalry. No matter how hard the Pac-12 pushes, and no matter whatever lame, lazy name they give this game (Rumble in the Rockies??? Really?), and no matter what happened the last time these two teams played, fifty freaking years ago, this is not a rivalry game. Utah and Colorado's coaches put it best when they called this game an arranged marriage. This week just feels hollow. Trackbacks
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