[Trailgoat]

Alex must have a solid euro connection after all the years he played pro over seas.

[Trailgoat]

Man, GM did everything asked of him and more on a crappy team with very little help. Madsen on a team with better talent would have been fun to watch. Ball handling and driving to the basket is not his game. When no other player can handle the ball, drive to the basket or make lay ups someone has to step in. Watched the BYU game and spots of other games during the season, nothing really changed with or without Smith. Asst coach did a good job coaching up the players to close out the season strong. Ausar, Dawes, and Wahlin had incentive to play hard if they want to build NIL value to get picked up by other teams. Not sure why they wouldn’t shop around for a stable team with a decent NIL deal.

[Trailgoat]

Bowl wins, no question. Combining the Rose Bowl games with the BB titles in your scenario, I would still choose the Fiesta and Sugar bowl wins. Football > BB all day. That said, my interest in college football continues to fizzle.

[Trailgoat]

Utah sports talk radio 101 content is capturing both BYU-Utah, and the hybrids. Kall 700 is very protective of KW. Occasionally poach the Utah football specific guests, Weddle, Mitchell, coaches, pressers, etc on the podcast rewind. Other than that, OC’s program is hard to listen to live. I imagine filling 3-4 hours of talk radio everyday is challenging especially with KW’s no access mandate. OC does have a solid radio presence. I have given his show a couple shots, half the time chiming in it was some loud mouth friend of OC sitting in clearly from somewhere outside of Utah. Another time it was another of OCs buddies talking Oregon football the entire time. Stopped listening live after that. To be fair, I listened very infrequently so hopefully better overall than what I’ve experienced. Bottom line, Riley’s a tough act to follow. I do find it odd when listening a few times to Checketts how he bagged on Utah fans collectively from a small sample group of Utah/trolls on social media posts. Guessing it’s a tactic to get more BYU listeners? Not sure, but it certainly was a factor in me losing interest in his show. Upside is Utah football is being talked about, all depends what you want to listen to. Go Utes!

[Trailgoat]

He’s earned the right to turn it round. He’s also primarily responsible for mismanaging the program over the last two years. KW’s not going to walk away from that big contract amendment he attained in 2022. If year three ends up of more injury blaming, and sabotaging the offense, he needs to hang it up. He looks MS sounds much more refreshing and up beat. Interesting season ahead. I hope KW has a great year to finish off his amazing career at Utah on a high note. Ready for the Scalley head coach era. Go Utes!

[Trailgoat]

Solid post MU. Seems some schools are already on it or at least out in front of everyone else. Houston from a BB perspective is doing something right. Kelvin Sampson with solid NIL support has turned Houston into a power house. UH’s been making deep runs into the NCAA tourney the last 6 years straight.

Agree on expectations. Looked back to see when Jensen and Miller overlapped. Holy sh$%, looking at the rosters of Majerus teams from the early-mid 90s to 2000 at Utah. If I counted correctly, which is a stretch :), 2-3 of the late 90s teams had 5-6 NBA level players. RM played the rag tag player coach speak game in the media, but he recruited and developed a lot of very talented basketball players.

[Trailgoat]

Agree MU. The JG interviews seem calculated right after the announcement. Josh was no BS. Solid interview. Football needs a stand up player to call out what’s been going on with football instead of all the lay down local media and ex players afraid to call out the BS like JG did for BB. Harlan needs a win hire or he’s next. All the AJ noise flying over the SLC airwaves indicates to me AJ is already locked in as the new head coach. Guessing Alex’s first question was, what’s in the NIL bank for BB? Wasn’t Burgess supposed to be part of the BB legacy connection, then he bails? Wonder how the previous Ute BB players think about him jumping ship, although hard not to blame him.

[Trailgoat]

Agreed. Growing up in P12 country surely skews my bias towards the P12 teams. UCLA game is the only Utah game I am attending this coming season. Outside of Utah games, way more viewing interest in the old P12 teams play vs. the non-Utah Big 12 games. Some of the MWC games, USU, BSU games are more interesting. No disdain for the B12, it’s more about fading interest in college football overall. Also ready as a fan to move on from the KW era. He had his run, time for a leader with a new fresh approach.

[Trailgoat]

Crazy. I remember skiing Alta pow on a weekday for less than $20 a pass back in the early 90s while attending the U. The 2002 Olympics was a blessing and a curse for SLC.

[Trailgoat]

Agree MU. 5 conference wins from here on out should be considered a success. Can’t believe that’s how far the program has fallen. The athletic department has systemic issues no one really wants to address. As a fan, I am ready for some new, forward thinking leadership. Time for KW, Harlan, and Smith to move on in 2025 for a fresh start in 2026. Beginning to think maybe Randall is part of the problem as well. In my 30 years of being a Utah fan going back to days as a student, I have never seen both men’s BB and football collectively be this bad together.

[Author]

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