SBN Pac12 Sites Roundtable the Expansion

“Utah has three outright conference titles since 1957 (BYU has two in the last 4 years). BYU has 22 conference championships since 1976.” Why did you choose 1957? Oh, I know! Because you ignore everything that happened prior to LaVelle Edwards. Perhaps you weren’t aware that both teams have 24 conference championships (and yes, BYU was in the same conference as Utah well before 1957), and that both teams have 3 outright and 1 shared MWC championships? I could use the same argument and say Utah has had 3 outright conference championships since 2003 and BYU has had 2, but I won’t stoop to your level and pick and choose the years which make my team look better, as you have chosen to do.

“Utah has finished ahead of BYU in the conference standings just one time in the last 5 years in football (and just five times total in the last 40 years). BYU has finished ahead of Utah outright 4 times in the last 5 years and over 30 times in the last 40 years. Ouch.” Once again you choose the years that make BYU look good and Utah look bad. 5 and 40? Strange years to pick. Why not 20? Why not 10? Why not 100? You choose 30 when it suits you. You choose 100, too. But you only chose those numbers when they make BYU look good and Utah look bad. Once again, you are intentionally misleading your readers. You and I both know why you chose 5 years instead of 7.

“In the last 5 years, Utah has finished in the MWC conference as follows: 6th, 4th, 3rd, 1st, 3rd. BYU has finished as follows; 2nd, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 2nd. Interesting that you chose 5 years.” Let’s use your methodology and go back 7: Utah is 1,1, 5 (3 way tie for 4th), 3.5 (2 way tie for 3rd), 3.5 (3 way tie for 3rd), 1, and 3. Average: 2.57. BYU is 5 (3 way tie for 4th), 3, 2.5 (2 way tie for 2nd), 1,1, 3, and 2. Average: 2.5. And as I pointed out, both teams have 3 outright and 1 shared conference title. Wow, BYU sure is exponentially better at MWC play!

“The overall series all-time is 50-31-4 (not 58-28 as a ute fan proclaimed above). However, BYU has won 3 of the last 4 and 29 of the last 41 in this series. Utter domination. Utah fans have to look to their great grandaddies to find someone that remembers an era where Utah was better than BYU. Pretty sad. Simply put, very few "rivalries" has been as lopsided as this one (in BYU’s favor, I might add) in the last 40 years. If one team is winning 75% of the time, then who is this a "rivalry" to anyways?” Here you go again. 4 years, 41 years, 40 years. Picking and choosing years that make BYU look the best. You should be aware that there are several factually incorrect statements here. Firstly, BYU has not won 29 of the previous 41 games, they have won 26 (.634). If you believe that’s dominance, then you must believe that the "era" of 1993 to 2005 to be utter dominance, where Utah won 9 of the 13 games, for a win ratio of .692. Oh, and my great grandpa, grandpa, and father were all long gone by 2005. I could use the same argument and say that Utah has beaten BYU 5 of the last 8 years, 10 of the last 17, etc. And no, the record is not 50-31-4, it’s 53-34-4. You can’t choose to ignore games played just because you changed the name of your school. Notice Utah didn’t do that when we changed from The University of Deseret. Oh, and I think it might just be a “rivalry” to the fan that followed a rival fan to a completely separate college fan’s blogjust to troll here!

“Now onto bowl records……..Utah fans talk about their "12-3" bowl record. But, remember, nine of these 15 bowl games have occurred since 1999. Utah only started to qualify for bowls when the bowl season become so watered down that any 6 win team would qualify. Prior to the late 90’s you actually had to be GOOD to make a bowl game. Not so much anymore. As a result, the vast majority of these "bowl wins" have come against second tier opponents. Since 1995, Utah has played two bowl opponents that managed to finish with a winning record and rank in the final Sagarin top 40. One of those teams destroyed Utah 38-10. The other was Alabama. Since 1999, here is the list of the teams Utah has played in bowl games: WAC Fresno State, 6 win USC, C-USA Southern Miss, 7 win Pittsburgh, 7 win Georgia Tech, C-USA Tulsa, Navy, Alabama and Pac-10 6th place Cal. That is not murder’s row. In fact, other than Alabama, that bowl resume is TERRIBLE. What credit should Utah deserve for beating Navy or Tulsa or Fresno State or Southern Miss when they were getting blasted in the regular season by the likes of New Mexico, UNLV, Wyoming, or Colorado State? Bad, bad, bad.” First you say that 6 of the 15 bowls Utah has been to occurred before 1999, then you say we only qualify for bowls because they were watered down? Which is it? So, you point out that Utah has beaten low-quality opponents in their 9 game winning streak from 1999 to 2009. How has BYU done in that time, and who was their opponent? You lost to 13-0 Marshall 21-3 in ’99. Lost to 11-2 Louisville 28-10 in ’01. Lost to 8-4 Cal 35-28 in ’05. Beat 7-6 Oregon 38-8 in ’06. Beat 6-7 UCLA 17-16 in ‘07. Lost to 8-5 Arizona 31-21 in ‘08. And beat 8-5 Oregon State 44-20 in ‘09. You point out that our wins are so bad, but your best win was last year against a team that lost 5 games. What were the records of the teams Utah BEAT in the last 9 bowls? 8-5, 12-2, 8-5, 8-5, 7-5, 8-4, 9-4, 6-6, 8-5. So, the record of these teams BEFORE Utah beat them was .698. Again, Utah went 9-0 against teams with a record of .698 BEFORE the bowl game. BYU went 3-4 against teams that had a .686 record BEFORE the bowl game. The three teams that BYU beat? Well, they were .583. Why do I recite the record before the game, not after? Because when Utah beats them, their record goes down, and when BYU loses, their opponents record goes up.

“More evidence of Utah’s ineptitude: Utah has not beaten a major conference team on the road that finished with a winning record in nearly a generation. Utah has just one victory in the last 15 years against a non-league opponent that was ranked the day they played and who also FINISHED ranked in both polls (non-inspired Alabama team). And to cap it off……Utah has ONE victory in over 100 years of playing football against a major conference team that finished with less than 4 losses. One. That’s it.” I find it fascinating when people use so many filters to strengthen their argument. What they don’t realize is that by using so many filters, they are not only diminishing their own argument, but they are reducing the chances of success or failure to almost nil." Major Conference team? Well, I assume you mean BCS AQ conference, which reduces the number of games Utah plays annually to 1, 2 or maybe 3 due to a bowl game? Road game, well, that removes the neutral bowl games, and takes the possibility of a game per year at 0 or 1. That team has a winning record at the end of the year? Well, that mathematically eliminates 50% of all teams, so we’re now looking at about 1 game every 3 years. “Nearly a generation”? How very specific of you. You don’t know the real date, or opponent, do you? I do, but I won’t provide you that info because I want you to do the research yourself – as I have. I will tell you that in a "generation", there have been several road victories against winning teams from AQ conferences, and the most recent one proves your statement to be an outright lie. The more I read your posts, the more I understand where you’re coming from. 100% of your data came from some other BYU poster and you simply believed what they said to be true, and although I’ve proven so many of them factually incorrect, you and many of your myopic friends will just continue to spout poorly researched lies. By the way, I think it absolutely hilarious that you are discounting your own team, BYU, in the statement above. By saying ‘major conference team’, you remove the wins by Utah against winning-record BYU teams on the road. So, I must assume that you don’t think those are quality wins. In Provo, 2005, Utah beat 6-5 BYU. In Provo, 1999, Utah beat 8-3 BYU. In Provo, 1997, Utah beat 6-4 BYU. In Provo 1995, Utah beat 7-3 BYU. In Provo 1993, Utah beat 6-5 BYU. So, in the past 9 road games against BYU, BYU has had a winning record going into 8 of them, and Utah won 5. Maybe you won’t give credit to winning BYU programs, but I will. By the way, you really shouldn’t have used “ONE victory in over 100 years…major conference…less than 4 losses”. Remember where I pointed out all those years where college teams used to play only 8 games? Utah beat a LOT of teams with 5-3 or better records in major conferences (plenty from the now Big 10, Big 12, and Pac10)…your statement is simply factually incorrect again.

“As you can see, Utah has been historically (or at least in the last 50-60 years) one of the worst Division I program in college football. Very few programs boast such few accomplishments (virtually never finishing ranked, virtually never winning a league title, nor beating anyone of consequence).” That’s hilarious. Here I am pointing out how Utah bests BYU in so many ways, or at least is comparable, and you rank us as one of the worse DI programs? My, how you must think of BYU!!!

“As for BYU, included in all many great BYU seasons above (a plethora of ranked seasons, bowl games, and 10+ win seasons) is included the following: A national championship, a Heisman trophy winner, 2 Outland trophy winners, several Davey O’Brien winners, several top 5 Heisman voting finishes, and a Doalk Walker winner. BYU has also had many consensus All-Americans. BYU has multiple QB’s go onto the NFL and be starters on prominent Super Bowl winning teams (such as Jim McMahon with the ‘85 Bears and Steve Young with the ’95 49ers). In fact, Steve is still the highest rated passer in NFL history. Utah’s claim to NFL fame? Alex Smith! LOL. Pathetic.” Ah, yes, we all bow before BYU’s omnipotence. After all, Utah’s Cactus Jack Curtis, Ike Armstrong, the “Utah Pass”, Jim Fassel, Lee Grosscup, NFL hall of famer Larry Wilson, Super Bowl coach George Seifert, or the 24 players on current NFL rosters (19 for BYU) have had no influence at all on collegiate or professional football. We bow to your (jackassery, arrogance, take your pick) superiority. But I don’t expect you to know any of those guys.

“In addition to all the above, we know that BYU has vastly superior facilities, vastly higher attendance at games (both home and away), and brings in a much wider viewing audience.” Uh, we do? We know you have vastly superior facilities? I’m not sure if you know what ‘facilities’ means. You better qualify that statement, because the weight room, TOSH, IPF, and RES are all so much nicer than their equivalents in Provo – because most of BYU’s stuff is 20-40 years old. They don’t call LES ‘Erector Set Stadium’ for nothing. As for attendance? BYU is the school with the largest attendance of any non-BCS school. Any guesses as who #2 is? That’s right, Utah. But, we’re working on that. The new PAC $ will be of great assistance in increasing stadium capacity. We’ve been at 97% of capacity since Meyer took over in 2003 (BYU is at the same 97% in that time frame), and 100%+ in the last two years (also, same as BYU). And your claim about away game attendance? You’re going to have to come up with some research on this one, too. Because the numbers I’ve seen contradict this. You should also be aware that BYU fans have a reputation (rightly deserved) of not spending a dime during road or bowl games. They pay for their tix, and that’s it. They don’t buy gear, hotel rooms, bar tabs, restaurant tabs, other entertainment…hell, they don’t even go to the concession stands and they won’t fit the bill when asked to pay to see their teams on tv! That might have something to do with that ‘national’ audience you folks are so good at pointing out. If I was a BYU fan living in Dallas, I might have shown up to the 2009 game against Oklahoma, but ate at home, slept at home, etc. So, to those that equate high numbers of fans with money, it’s less so with BYU.

“There is no comparing these two programs in any way. I guess for Utah fans, their entire history revolves around 3 months in 2004 and 3 months in 2008. If it didn’t occur in those small windows then it is an ugly blemish that must be forgotten. Unfortunately, they can hide from their past. It’s bad.” You were so quick to point out that Utah fans focus on our success prior to 1970, yet here you are pointing to our BCS bowl runs. Thank you for making my point once again. Yes, most of Utah’s success occurred between 1896 and 1972, then again from 2003 to current. And most of BYU’s success came under Lavelle and Bronco. But then again, the PAC10 must think, “There is no comparing these two programs in any way.” I can only laugh at how much that must bother you.