BooYah!! Rick Reilly knows what's up with the Utes.

I've always liked Rick Reilly, and his recent article on the BCS and the Utes is no less than awesome. To get the true picture you really need to read it outloud. Actually I've done that for you below. Enjoy.


Here's the link if you want to read it

Here's another great article from the Washington Post



I do know how to say Amish, but I didn't want to rerecord the whole article (the current recording was my third attempt and I'm not sure Melissa would have allowed a 4th)

Addendum:
The sportswriters voted Utah to the number 2 spot. Only 16 of the 65 writers had the guts to make the right choice. What a crock. Has there ever been a year in the history of college football that ended with only one undefeated team and that team finished 2nd? There have been other undefeated teams to not be ranked number one, but if a team is good enough to be number 2 what rationale keeps just one one-loss team ahead of them?

Once again the BCS has proven to be the worst thing to happen to college football in my lifetime, and complain as they may, 48 national sports writers had a chance to make a statement, and do the right thing but they couldn't.

College football has officially fallen to the level of gymnastics and figure skating in my ranking of sport, just above synchronized swimming.

In the end I'm proud of the Utes. Two undefeated seasons in five years. I'll take that over a one-loss BCS champion any day of the week (honestly), and though I would have like to have the AP vote I'll settle for the national championship as given by Rick Reilly.

So many Celebrations all Mashed into One Post

What a whirlwind of festivities we have had over the last few weeks. The last "non-sports blog" left off the day before Christmas Eve with Jessi's ear surgery. Her recovery was quick and we were all up and ready for Christmas Eve. I spent a very enjoyable portion of the day in the kitchen singing along with Christmas tunes and making dishes for the Christmas Eve party we would be attending. The kids spent a good portion of the day asking me when it would be time to go to their friends house.

The time finally came and we all loaded up to go to the Brady's for a Christmas Eve feast and program. A feast is putting it lightly, we had an extraordinary meal complete with all of the trimmings and then some. The kids then decorated cookies for Santa and Kristian served as a human vacuum for to clean up all of the sprinkles off of the tables. I wish I would have got a picture of it but I cleaned him off instead. What was I thinking. It was then time for the Christmas story so we dressed up the children in their assigned characters. Spencer was a wise man, Jessi and angel, and Kristian was a sheep but quickly decided he would rather be a fireman and just sit on Dad's lap. There were several families in attendance and it made for a wonderful Christmas Story. The picture just doesn't do justice of how many children were trying to get in around the baby. So Sweet. Thanks again to the Brady's for having us over. We had a wonderful evening!!

At the conclusion of the party (and after Jacob got in a few game of Foosball) it was time to head home for our own Christmas Eve Traditions. We read the Christmas story again, said our family prayer, and then let the kids open their PJ's. This year they received two pairs. One that I had made and then their pair from Grandma Corry. They were very excited about both and I must say, I was very excited that the pj's I made fit well and the kids really liked the material they were made with. (side note . . I have since washed the boys pj's and they shrunk, big time, sigh. ) We then got the kids in bed and amazingly they all zonked out within about 15 minutes so that Jacob and I could set up all of the gifts and follow them to bed.

Jessi woke up first on Christmas morning at 8:00 am. I don't remember the last time I got to sleep in on Christmas morning but I must say it was rather enjoyable. She then woke up Spencer and Kristian and we all headed downstairs to open stockings and presents. The children were so fun this year. They all understood the "opening presents" idea and were very happy with the gifts they had received. I think they also liked that their presents kept coming around quickly as there was just us. It was a great Christmas morning filled with lots of smiles and lots of joy.

After presents we had a big breakfast/lunch followed by every toy being taken out of its box, set up, played with for a few minutes, and then moving on to the next. By nap time, we were all still in our pj's and ended up staying that way for the day. Our Christmas day was spent playing with the kids and generally relaxing. I am so very grateful for such a wonderful Christmas day. I don't think our first Christmas alone could have gone any better. (Not to say that we didn't miss family, tremendously, but it was not as hard as I was imagining, thanks to good friends and great kids.)

The Christmas stuff all came down over the next few days. It normally hangs around a bit longer but this year I wanted things back to normal asap as we still had a lot of celebrating to do. On December 29th Jacob and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. Jacob got me a dozen roses, my favorite, and we celebrated with dinner and a movie. I don't remember the last time we went to eat with just the two of us, but I think we have decided we need to do it more. It was so, so, so enjoyable. I can't believe what eight years have brought us. I love you sweetheart and am looking forward to many more years together.

Our fun filled festivities don't end yet. New Years was celebrated at the Kindred's for a Japanese New Years Party. Once again, there were lots of us (40 something) in a home celebrating the new year together and once again, the food was amazing. I wish I would have remember the camera. Thanks Larissa for having us and putting out such a great spread of delicious Japanese delights. Jacob loved the shrimp tempura. (it's one of his favorites) We lasted till about 9:30 and headed home, put the kids to bed, and Jacob and I followed them straight to bed. I believe we said happy new years at about 10:00. Ah well, the sleep was nice.

Our final celebration was two days later. We hosted a Bowl Game Party to celebrate the Ute's Sugar Bowl appearance. Once again, there was great food involved in this celebration as well. I think this is trend. Our good friends, and BYU fans I might add, came and we all had a great time watching the game and laughing at Jacob's tension. To say he was wound up would be an understatement. Luckily the Utes came out big in the first quarter scoring 3 touchdowns and then held the lead for the remainder of the game. It ended at 12:00, I went to bed at about 12:30 and Jacob came up about 3:00 I think. Lots of post-game highlights to watch.

So that is where we are now. We have a few more festivities to gear up for now. We are hosting a portion of Second Look for the hospital on Saturday so that is prompting us to finish some more home remodeling projects. There will be pictures to follow on their completion. Saturday is also Spencer's 6th birthday. The original plan was Chuck E Cheese as things are a little busy but he let us know at Family Home Evening last night that he wanted a party and no matter how I tried to make Chuck E Cheese sound better he would not be detoured. So apparently now we are doing a small party for Spencer sometime between second look and his surgery on the 15th. Ah joy, At some point our life will slow down. But then it wouldn't be near as fun.

So there you have it. Way to much information for one post but what ya gonna do.

The logical National Champion

As if we need more reasons for the Utes to be national champions I'm going to spell it out logically.

The Utes are currently ranked 7th in the AP poll. The loss of Penn State and the win over Alabama automatically drop those two teams below the Utes. Here is why the Utes deserve to be ranked above the remaining 4 teams.

Florida lost to Ole Miss who lost to Alabama who was beat by Utah (by a larger margin than Florida beat them I might add).
Oklahoma lost to Texas who lost to Texas Tech who lost to Ole Miss who lost to Alabama who lost to Utah.
Texas lost to Texas Tech who lost to Ole Miss who lost to Vanderbilt who lost to Tennessee who lost to Wyoming who lost to Utah.
USC lost to Oregon State who lost to Utah.

Utah lost to NOBODY!!!!

More arguments for a Ute national championship

The BCS is a joke so we'll move straight to the AP title. That's the one that crowned the real national champion back when the BCS went with Saban's LSU Tigers. This year there have been 5 different teams ranked number 1 in the AP poll. Every one of those teams was undefeated until Florida took over the spot in the last week of the season. The only reason there weren't 7 different number 1 teams is that Penn State and Texas Tech both lost before Alabama (both teams were ranked above all one loss teams at one point in the season).

There is no doubt that if Alabama or Penn State were left as the only undefeated teams in FBS they would be national champions. The argument goes something like Alabama and Penn State deserve it if they can make it through their grueling schedules, yet both teams have a worse Strength of Schedule than the Utes.

The Utes beat 6 bowl teams this year. They went 3-0 against BCS ranked teams. When looking at the big schools it's rarely a one year deal, we look at how dominant said team has been for the past few years and that factors into the equation. The Utes have now gone undefeated twice in 4 years. They have won 8 straight bowl games and own the nations longest winning streak at 14 games. When talking about the national title there is an argument against every team in the nation except the Utes.

As if you need any more support for the Utes they also beat Oregon State and from the look of things this bowl season it appears that the SEC and Big 12 may not have a stranglehold on the best BCS conference.

In the end they are undefeated and they finished the season by spanking the team that held the top spot in the AP poll and the BCS for 5 weeks this season. That's a recipe for a national title if I've ever seen one.

National Champions!!!

My rant for a playoff will come next week, but tonight we watched the national champions beat Alabama. Utah finished off a perfect season by beating a top 5 team. There remains one undefeated team in the nation. Now I could understand the Utes getting left out of the championship conversation (as they will) if they squeaked by the Tide. Maybe if they won on some trick plays like Boise did a couple years ago people could say they got lucky, but Utah beat Alabama and they beat them good. The Tide averaged 160 yards a game rushing in the "powerful" SEC and they mustered 31 yards against the Utes. Even the two touchdowns Bama scored showed how good the Utes played. One came on a punt return and the other after a fumble gave the Tide a short field. The Utes stifled every drive the Tide attempted. This was nothing short of a beat down and the Utes deserve the AP national championship. There is no longer an argument against the Utes this year.