[SantaVaca]

I went to the game last night and was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was. Craig has definitely recruited shooters. It will be interesting to see if we can hang with some of the teams in the Big12.

I think this team will surprise a few people this year and I don’t think it’s out of the possibility that we finish somewhere around the middle of the pack. I’m still rooting for Craig to succeed here. I like him and hope that somehow, someway, we can figure the whole NIL thing out and get back to being a competitive team. Craig is fighting with one arm tied behind his back with NIL so I kind of feel bad for him. It would be nice to seem him succeed in spite of his lack of resources.

We also need about 7000 more fans (and 2000 more students) to show up, but if we keep winning, I think the fans will come back.

Go UTES!

[SantaVaca]

You bring up some interesting points.

First of all, I try to tell myself that in life, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. However, right now, I’m pretty discouraged about my beloved Utes. We are going to finish in last place in both football and basketball. Things really seem to be hitting us pretty hard the last few years. I don’t know if this is Harlan’s fault, Whit’s fault, Coach K’s fault, or something completely beyond our control. But this is definitely a low point in Utah athletics, imo. Have you been to a basketball game? It’s beyond sad that we only get about 3500 fans out to a place that used to be one of the toughest places to play in the entire country.

On the flip side, BYU has so many built in advantages with so many millionaire donors that are willing to donate to BYU that it has completely ruined my outlook on the Utes going forward. I have completely stopped listening to sports radio, reading blogs, or even watching ESPN. The thought that Ryan Smith (and several others) can just buy any player they want and can, in turn, buy BYU a championship, just seems so wrong to me. I also don’t like Phil Knight being able to do the same thing with Oregon. Maybe I’m just being naive and you bring up a lot of good points that maybe Utah has had some pretty big advantages over BYU for 15+ years and maybe this is just the universe balancing things out a little bit. I don’t know. I just know that I sold my tickets to the BYU game and I am going to miss a Utah game for the first time in over 35 years. I’ve never seen Utah look this bad in football since the Jim Fassel years.

Maybe I’m overreacting but things are really bad right now for Utah. We can’t get a first down to save our lives and I doubt the basketball team wins more than 2 or 3 conference games. How a once proud university could have fallen so far, so fast is beyond me.

I really liked your post and you seem like a decent guy, but I think you’re underestimating how much money is being poured in to BYU right now. And at the same time, how little money is coming in at Utah. Very few universities have the alumni that can compete with Ryan Smith. I heard a stat that Utah’s total NIL for basketball is $1.5 million. That’s for the entire team. If the rumors are true, Ryan is going to pay >$4 million just for one recruit next year! Ryan Smith will cause irrevocable damage to amateur sports that this probably will be the end of college football and basketball as we know it.

For this reason, I’ve completely ignored the Utah hockey club and Jazz this year. I used to watch every Jazz game I could and would rarely miss a game. All that is different now. I can’t, in good conscience, support the Jazz if the money is just going to get funneled into BYU. I’m LDS. It has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with why I loved college sports to begin with. I hate that scumbags like Ryan Smith can just buy their way to a championship. It just doesn’t seem right.

The last thing I want to bring up is I wish someone at a reputable local news source would do an deep dive into our NIL situation and how the local teams are doing compared to other universities. It seems that no one wants to talk about it. I know a few former athletes and all of them HATE Harlan with a passion. I would love to see Harlan’s opinion on NIL and what he’s doing to keep Utah relevant. All I know is Chris Hill took a midlevel WAC / MWC team in the 1980s and turned into back to back PAC12 champions. Since Harlan has been here, Utah has fallen to the bottom of the conference in both sports, and our rival is spending millions of dollars more than us every year.

I’m sorry to be such a downer. Maybe Scalley will clean house and bring in enough firepower next year so that we can try to compete and maybe even score a couple of touchdowns against the mighty, mighty University of Houston or University of Arizona. But I’m not holding my breath.

[SantaVaca]

I’m curious as to how many more scholarships we have available?

[SantaVaca]

I’ll take em if they’re still available

How much?

[SantaVaca]

I was just thinking about this and I would love to sit pretty much all of our banged up starters. Every last one of them. We need to get healthy and ready for conference play. I also want to give 100% of the reps to Nate Johnson. We live or die with him until Rising comes back. Let’s let him throw the ball around and get our receivers as many touches as possible. I would rest JJ and every other player that isn’t 100%. Let our young guys make mistakes against Weber so they aren’t making them down the road. Let Glover show what he can do so we have some depth at RB. I don’t really care what the margin of victory is if we can get most of our players healthy and ready for UCLA. Winning 55-7 does nothing for me now. I want to see what a healthy team can do, on the road, in hostile environments. The team I saw on Saturday will probably finish no better than 8-4. If Nate can keep progressing, maybe we have a shot at a conference championship if Oregon and / or USC trip up.

Just my random thoughts.

[SantaVaca]

Ya. I think you’re 100% right. One thing I also think about is how we should have destroyed you in basketball the past 15 years. We were in the mighty PAC12 and you guys were in the lowly WCC. Yet, you beat us 80% of the time and most years, it wasn’t even that close. Let’s not even talk about the Jimmer game.

I think it’s a testament of how hard it’s going to be for Utah to beat BYU going forward. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have ever lost a recruit to BYU while you were in the WCC. Yet, I don’t think we won more than 1 or 2 recruiting battles. Even though you guys were playing in high school gyms, and we were playing against UCLA, Arizona, and Oregon every year. And yet most high school players still preferred to play at BYU over what ever crappy product we were putting out. Now, you throw in millions of dollars in NIL, and I don’t seeing us ever beating you more than a game or two every decade. Sigh. I’m going to go take a walk and try to figure out how to change my life. Haha.

[SantaVaca]

This is complete BS. Mormons do so many things to help their fellow man. I’m so sick of hearing bigots like you spew off on something so wrong and untrue. Everyday Mormons try to be good neighbors and serve others the best way they can. Are they perfect? Of course not. But what act of service did you do this week? I guarantee if we asked a few Mormons what they did, they could rattle off several things they did to serve others.

Your kind of comment was the exact reason why Utefans.net is dead. Be better than this. We all need to be a little kinder to each other. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Go UTES!

[SantaVaca]

Just sent you a PM.

[SantaVaca]

I’ll admit my post was a downer, but things suck right now for us. No one goes to our home games. We can’t win a freaking road game to save our lives, and unless we get some great new transfer next year, we are right back to where we were 4 years ago.

I like Craig Smith. I think he was a huge breath of fresh air from Krysto, but he is a horrible recruiter and I’m scared to death that we lose Keita and Smith both transfer after we get blown out on Wednesday in Vegas.

[SantaVaca]

Great. Thanks! About what row is free game?

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