Come at us, Ricky

[Ghost of the HEB]

Ricky Pearsall says that Utah is, “a hostile environment, but there’s nothing like the Swamp or the SEC.”

He also said that Florida is going to break Utah’s 14 Home game winning streak 🐊🔥 pic.twitter.com/5aiHYbJEhd

— Florida Gators 🐊🔥 (@gatorsszn) August 25, 2023

[ProudUte]

Pearsall should know that RES is a hostile environment. He played here twice and lost both times. In 2019 the ASU passing attack racked up an amazing 25 total yards.

Is RES as loud as Gainsville? No. I have never been to a louder stadium than at Gainsville last September. However, we will be loud enough to cause the Gators problems.

Go Utes!!!

[Milton Vanderslice]

This right here. You don’t need to be the loudest, you only need to be loud enough.

[rbmw263]

helps that our team just plays a s**t ton better at home

[prestitute]

I was over between the 10 and the 20 in the Swamp (sadly, standing right above Cam when he threw the pick at the end. It was plenty loud, but it wasn’t night and day compared to RES. Like, I am not saying RES is louder, but I totally agree with the loud enough comments.

[//r00t4Utes]

Too lazy to start a new thread, but on College Game Day, both Pat and Kirk picked the U to win the PAC12, Des picked Washington.

[D T]

What would one expect him to say otherwise? It certainly doesn’t mean it’s going to play out that way.

IMO, we’ll pull away in the 2nd half & cover the spread.

[Larry B]

They’re a pretty c**ky bunch for a team that lost 7 games last year.

[ProudUte]

I agree. He did not say anything bad, just supporting your team.

[The Miami Ute]

You have to understand their attitude. They feel that just by virtue of being part of the SEC, that automatically gives them a 10-point edge over PAC teams. They also feel that PAC teams are softer and smaller than SEC teams. I went to the Swamp last year and there was this jackass sitting behind me yelling “but it’s Utah!” the entirety of the game. In the minds of the fans of a lot of East Coast teams we rarely play, Utah is still a member of the WAC, much less the Mountain West. When you bring up the fact that Florida got destroyed by a PAC team in the Las Vegas Bowl (Oregon State), they’ll say stuff like they had their best players out or that the game didn’t mean anything to them. The only way to fix this attitude is to beat them next Thursday at Rice-Eccles. If Utah loses to Florida, then this whole narrative about Utah not being at the same level as a Florida will continue to gain traction.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

I don’t know about the fans in SEC country, but nobody in BigTen or ACC country thinks of Utah as a “WAC” school. Utah has earned a lot of respect in BigTen country by hammering Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, and going 3-1 vs Michigan since 2002. When I’d attended the Ore St @ Penn St game back in Sept 2008, there were a ton of PSU fans talking up Utah’s win over Michigan the week before, inviting me to join them at their tailgate parties.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, there you go…I’m from Florida and I can only tell you information that I’ve experienced firsthand from other fans in the region. No doubt it’s a cultural thing mostly prevalent in the Southeast, but that doesn’t take it away from its existence. I imagine here shortly that we’re going to be exposed to something similar when we start playing the Texas schools in the Big 12 regularly. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll be glad to get out of the Big 12 ASAP, even if we have to go back to some Frankenstein version of a reconstituted PAC 12 currently being cooked up by OSU/Wazzu and the Mountain West.

[2008 National Champ]

To be fair, should Florida win on Thursday, they will have a point. A mid-level SEC team would have gone 2-0 against the two-time Pac champs. And a win by Utah doesn’t prove anything either since they will have won a game they always should have.

We can claim bias all we want but SEC teams end up winning well more than their share of their games, thus their stature and bragging rights.

[The Miami Ute]

Utah was the better team last year and lost because A. Failure to execute by the offense (Six trips inside the Red Zone and only getting 13 points) and B. The defense played atrociously missing numerous tackles and allowing AR-15 to dictate the pace of the game. I will also say that the environment (crowd and climate) gave the Gators a tremendous boost. Other than the loss of Rising, the Utes are as ready for this game as any season opener I’ve seen since I became a Utah fan in the early 2000s. If the Gators can find a way to beat Utah in the hostile environment that is Rice-Eccles, then I’ll just have to tip my hat to them. A loss will also mean, at least in my eyes, that Utah has a long way to go before becoming a legitimate football power. Remember, this is a Gator team that lost to Vanderbilt, lost to Oregon State, lost handily to Kentucky at the Swamp the week after the game with the Utes, and just barely beat South Florida.

[2008 National Champ]

All of that is true and none of it matters. The only thing that matters is 29-26.

[Redblood]

Sorry but not accepting the scoreboard is a little too BYU for me. Red Zone scoring is just as important as any other part of the game. And moving up and down the field but not scoring doesn’t mean you are better. It means their players made plays in the red zone and we didn’t. Kind of a big part of the game not something you can throw out as not really indicative of who you are. And tackling and breaking tackles are also a big part of the game, in both cases it counts. It can’t be thrown out after the fact as evidence that we are better.

[The Miami Ute]

If that’s your opinion, great. I once saw Georgia get completely manhandled in the 1981 Sugar Bowl by Notre Dame (Buck Belue completed one pass for 7 yards in the entire game and I believe Georgia only amassed 120 yards of offense) yet they won 17-10 by virtue of four ND turnovers. Nobody that watched that game could ever say that Georgia was the better team. They, as it sometimes happens in football, were just more fortunate. There’s a difference between being “better” and being “fortunate”.

[2008 National Champ]

Where I think the disconnect between our two viewpoints is how you determine “better” and “fortunate” in this context. Yards gained is a factor in a win but not the ultimate indicator. And turnovers are not (in most cases) a function of one team’s performance.

In your example of Georgia v Notre Dame you say that they won by virtue of 4 ND turnovers as if Georgia just idly stood around on defense and Notre Dame handed them the ball. Georgia’s defense was as instrumental in creating those 4 turnovers as Notre Dame’s defense was in holding Georgia to a low yardage total. So it would be just as valid for me to say that Georgia was “better” for forcing and capitalizing on 4 turnovers while Notre Dame was “fortunate” to keep the score as close as they did. Statistics are great but they are also the opiate of the masses because they can be attributed or ignored to support bias.

There’s a reason higher point total is the ultimate arbiter. It doesn’t matter how you score more points than your opponent or whether the perception of how you did so is more aesthetically pleasing than your opponents performance. It just matters that you accomplished that task. And quite frankly, I’d rather be considered “fortunate” instead of “better” twelve times if it meant an undefeated season. Talking heads and fans can gripe all they want but they can’t take away the fact that I accomplished my goal of scoring more points than my opponent every time I stepped on the field.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, that’s certainly a reductionist approach to the issue. All you’ve done is describe a complex phenomenon (how a team won a game) in terms of its simple constituents (they scored more points). Were life so simple…

[2008 National Champ]

unless and until there is proposal on the table to determine the winner of each game by something other than total points scored, i’ll take reductionist as a compliment. I find it much easier to stick to the basics than try to link multiple unrelated circumstances into an overarching concept that can be turned around on me to disprove whatever point I thought I was trying to make

[RoboUte]

I mean if you can’t talk trash about a team you beat who can you talk about. A quarterback that could barely complete a pass made our defense look pathetic. I’d think we were a joke if I was them too tbh.

[//r00t4Utes]

That QB was drafted 4th overall, so the NFL teams must think he can complete a pass, now granted he killed the Utes with his legs, but there’s no need to disparage him.

[belli1976]

Richardson is QB1 for the Colts.

[prestitute]

They were c**ky last year and still somehow beat us, so we should be weary and ready! I think we will be ready. I wish we were at full strength, and I hope they feel it is a foregone conclusion that they will beat us.

[EagleMountainUte]

Hard to rank the bad taste in your mouth from the losses last season. Florida and Oregon shoulda woulda coulda. Penn State is still the most bitter memory.

[Calgradutedad]

Be sure to give them an SEC chant once Utah has the game in hand. The SEC is very top heavy. The middle and bottom teams are very beatable especially on the road.

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