A good time to reflect

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Let’s use this bye week to decompress and reflect on the positives. How many hours our coaches put in. How many hours the players put in. Our high graduation rate. How many players pass on what they have learned to coaching youth football and being well respected community members.

How proud we are as fans to watch the transformation of a program the last 20+ years. The enjoyment we’ve had going to CCGs and major bowl games. The diversity of our team and fan base.

People from different backgrounds coming together to share food and drinks with strangers from other cities and strangers from our own city. Taking your son’s daughters and grandkids to games. The family atmosphere Whitt and the staff have established. Individuals like Tony that dedicate a lot of their free time so we fans can post and communicate with each other. We still have 7+ games left. Go Utes

[Anfernee]

I think this bye week was perfect for the team. But extremely tough for fans. No one goes undefeated. Conference games are tough. We still have all our goals in front of us and very much achievable. Go Utes!

[The Miami Ute]

Sometimes I pine for the old MWC days. A lot of the innocence and enjoyment is lost when you’re in the college big leagues.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Miami remember when we used to say the big boys were afraid to play us. We can beat anybody. We could be competitive in a P5 conference. Don’t miss the New Mexico Wyoming UNLV games. Air Force was always a test. BYU TCU were always a big rival for conference title. You could drive to most away games.

[TheNuschler]

I think both eras were great in their own way. I give tons of credit to Coach McBride for bringing excitement back at the start and it’s been building ever since. I look at the top-tier SEC and B1G schools and it will be really difficult to get on their level, if ever. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more euphoric when Cam went for 2 at the end of the game against USC and took it from them. Those are the moments you get when you play in big-time games. I could hear the Stadium 5 miles away, it was awesome.

#byeweekthoughts
#camthoughts
#olinethoughts

[Ute Dub]

Agree. Utah is 4-1 with it’s best player out. There are positives to build on with a young gun slinger waiting in the wings and getting some early experience.

[utefansince79]

Back when we hoped to win the battle of the brothers and maybe win a few other games against the likes of Wyoming, Colorado State, and New Mexico, and at least blowing out UTEP was a foregone conclusion. Dreamed of one day beating that team down in Provo and heaven forbid attending a bowl game or maybe being in the ‘others receiving votes’ section of the polls.

[TX_UTE]

Great post, Jim, very balanced and well reasoned – how the heck am I suppose to overreact to that? 🙂

[ProudUte]

Thanks for the post, Jim. We are lucky as fans to have what we have.

For some stupid reason, I let this Arizona loss bother me much more than it logically should. I really can’t explain it, and it does not make sense.

I was a season ticket holder back in the days when we had back-to-back 1-10 seasons. I had great fun going to games. We lost a lot, yet somehow it didn’t bother me too much. I guess when you raise your expectations, losing (especially when you are favored) becomes more painful. I bet the Georgia fans are having a terrible week. They aren’t used to losing during the regular season.

I am personally glad for the bye week, so I can forget about football for a week. I think it would probably be better for the players to play and get the bad taste out of their mouths. However, the bye week allows the players to heal and be better prepared to play ASU.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I remember those days also proud Ute. 10,000-20,000 at the games. 6-6 was considered a good season. We have come along way with lots of bumps in the road along the way. The loss to Arizona is just another bump.

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