The Curmudgeonly Professor

North End Zone at LaVell Edwards Stadium Provo UT: From the Archives

BYU Fans Recuperating From Their Third Straight Loss and Licking Their Wounds

BYU band forming the "Y" just before hopes were dashed.

Nevada cheerleaders, just to show how fair my blog is.

We BYU fans are not used to losing, so losing the third game in a row has brought us down to the depths of humility.  While at the Farmer's Market in South Jordan yesterday, a guy wearing a Ute (as in Utah Utes) cap and tee-shirt pointed an ominous finger at me and said, Darth-Vader like, "You guys are in real trouble."  I hoped he was wrong, but feared he may be right.  After 10 years at Colorado State, I had become accustomed to losing, sitting in Hughes Stadium on Indian Summer afternoons and watching the CSU rams go down in flames time after time.  And then, the years at U of Wyoming, where we had some ups and downs, mostly downs the last few years.  U of Michigan and Penn State were used to winning.  When we were first at BYU, the LaVell Edwards era was just getting underway and the stable of All-American quarterbacks was getting untracked.  Except for a few inglorious losses, and the despicable losses occasionally to the U of U, we could go home from Cougar Stadium feeling superior and righteous and like we deserved to win another game.

No more, at least for the moment.  We have a nationally touted new quarterback, a coaching staff that seems a bit offy on some calls and moves, and a bunch of players who might be good in a few weeks or a year or two, but which are a ways off now.  Meanwhile, our dearly beloved enemy, the U of Utah, just beat up on creampuff no. 4 for the year and remains, for its efforts, ranked highly in the national polls.  The U, in fact, may be pretty good this year, but we'd like to see them play a real football team before we pass the accolades.  At LDS churches, the U folks gloat and the BYU folks mourn on Sundays after games like yesterday's.  The trouble with the medical profession in Utah is that virtually all doctors and specialists were trained at the U med school and hospitals, so like my dermatologist told his nurse after I was pointing out the superiority of BYU, "Treat this patient roughly."  A young lady at the Farmer's Market yesterday was wearing a U of U tee shirt and cap and I asked her if she was just wearing that to antagonize people and she assured me she was a real and true Ute, graduating this December, but instructed by her parents to get a real job for awhile this summer.  I asked her if she would sell a box of peaches to a BYU type, and she said she would, but she would not be allowed to tell anyone.

So while the BYU Cougars take whatever time it takes to get up to speed again, we'll all try and be good sports and root for whoever is playing any time we would like to see get beat.