Hello,
It has been a busy couple of days for me as I'm getting ready for inventory where I work. But I love college football so how could I not post today? If you didn't know, today is the kickoff of the college football season. This hits for really close to home for me. That's because my favorite school, BYU, and my alma mater, the University of Utah, both kickoff today. Alright for you USU Aggies fans, they also start their season. They'll play SUU, the first of 3 Utah schools they play this year.
Utah plays one of those direction schools, Northern Colorado. If you are a so-called directional school, that usually means you are pretty terrible in athletics. For every North Carolina there's 30 North Texas States. And when it comes to athletics Washington State is somewhere in the middle of those two teams.
Offensive mastermind Mike Leach makes his debut for Washington State. His Cougars will travel to play the Cougars of BYU at LaVell Edwards Stadium. With temperatures probably in the 70's or 80's at game time it should be perfect football weather. The game will be nationwide on ESPN, what will those tuning in see? WSU probably has the higher profile- that profile is nearly all to do with Leach. WSU doesn't have much of a athletics legacy and they've been terrible the last several years. I've tried to think of the last professional athlete that played at Washington State and no one comes to mind. For SEC fans: in football WSU is the Vanderbilt of the Pac 12.
With it being a first game it will be interesting how WSU operates Leach's spread offense. Equally interesting will be how the BYU defense does against this offense that was so potent at Texas Tech. BYU is not known for their super athletic corners or safeties so WSU could score a lot of points.
BYU, led by senior qb Riley Nelson at the controls, could also score a lot of points. Thankfully in the off season, BYU was able to end the ineffective Jake Heaps era. He transferred to Kansas and will sure to disappoint the Wildcat faithful. That leaves Nelson as the starting quarterback, with not much depth behind him. (If you can name BYU's back up qb, you are a true Cougar fan. It's James Lark, a senior with scant experience.) Nelson isn't your typical BYU quarterback, he doesn't have the big arm. He'll beat you with the intangibles and the passion he inspires in the other Cougar players. He's almost as likely to run the ball as he is to pass it. With no one great backing him up, look for the Cougar coaches to keep Nelson protected as much as possible. But if the WSU defense keys on that Nelson and BYU will probably be in for a long night.
If the WSU offense plays great I see them beating BYU and it could even be ugly. If BYU can slow them down, then the game is probably up for grabs.
Honestly if I had to predict I would expect this BYU team to win 7 or 8 games. Meanwhile the other Cougars will be lucky to be .500 at the end of their season.
Meanwhile Washington State's conference mate Utah opens against Northern Colorado. Bonus points if you can name Northern Colorado's mascot. I'm not going to tell you either. Starting for quarterback at Utah is the oft injured, duck throwing Jordan Wynn. It's only a matter of time until his season is ended by injury. His last two season's were ended by injury. If you're a Ute fan I don't think losing Wynn is such a bad thing. The Utes then could turn the qb duties over to future stud Travis Wilson. (Why would the Utes play Jon Hays, what is the upside of that?) Also the Utes welcome back stud running back John White, the Wolf man.
After the Utes start off with a couple of cupcakes, their schedule gets dramatically better quickly. They play a rivalry game against BYU. (Due to the Utes lame excuses, it will be the last BYU-Utah game in Salt Lake until 2016.) Then Utah plays at Arizona State and next will have about 10 days to prepare for perhaps the biggest college football game in Salt Lake ever. Okay maybe I let hype take over a bit there. The #1 Trojans and their Heisman contending quarterback Matt Barkley come to town. Originally I had talked myself into the fact that Utah had a chance in this game. But since then I've come to my senses, USC should win by at least three touchdowns. That Utes-Trojans game will be broadcast on a real network, ESPN. It won't be on the lame Pac 12 network, which from it being announced sounded like something that seems to be a disaster in the making.
Utah 38, Northern Colorado 3. Wynn should survive this game against the undermanned Bears. Next week he may want to watch out. The Utes play the chip on their shoulders Aggies in Logan. The Aggies will be wanting to show that they can compete with the Utes, even though the Utes are in a much superior conference. Utah- Utah State should actually be a pretty good game
themusicaddict
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