Pardon the cut and paste, but this was too good not to share.

Zoob

Dec. 22, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

ED GRANEY: Sitting Ducks are easy prey for Cougars

It was during the first half of the Las Vegas Bowl when officials gave Brigham Young’s football team a sideline warning for having too many coaches and reserves near the playing surface.

It would have made for a more interesting Thursday evening had the Cougars gone beyond the call and immediately removed several players from the game.

You figure Oregon could have competed against an eight-man team, right?

It’s debatable.

Horrific doesn’t begin to describe the Ducks in their 38-8 loss that seemed more like 68-8. Ugly. Unprepared. Undisciplined. Uninspired. The most appealing feature about Oregon was its uniforms and you know what a disaster they are.

This wasn’t even close enough to be considered embarrassing. That word implies you might have considered Oregon as good or better than BYU. The Ducks weren’t in the same area code, much less near the same level. It was that one-sided, that obvious which was the more talented team. Oregon offered some of the worst football Sam Boyd Stadium has seen in years — and we’ll remind you this is where UNLV plays.

“We didn’t do as good a job as we would have hoped, so maybe we weren’t ready,” Ducks coach Mike Bellotti said. “I’m disappointed and obviously shocked. I thought we would have played much better. … We would not have prepared any differently. We probably out-coached ourselves at times.”

Trust me: He and his staff didn’t out-coach anyone.

Bellotti and his players gave BYU credit for its decisive victory, and there’s no question the Cougars were intent on making some kind of statement. Perhaps for their conference. Perhaps for themselves. Perhaps because Bellotti said earlier in the week that BYU was no better than a midlevel Pac-10 squad.

(Just wondering: What exactly does that say about his team?)

BYU fans — which accounted for most of the record 44,615 that attended — rushed the field afterward, and it’s amazing they did given their team’s dominance. Such celebration is often reserved for contests in question. This was Assault over the field in the 1946 Kentucky Derby. This was Reagan over Mondale in ‘84. This was Roy Jones Jr. over James Toney in ‘94. This was Ken Jennings over anyone gripping a “Jeopardy” buzzer.

“It’s a big win for them,” Ducks linebacker Blair Phillips said. “The Pac-10 is supposed to be a better conference, but to beat us the way they did … I don’t know what happened. I don’t know. I can’t even tell you. I have no idea.”

I do.

Oregon couldn’t run the ball (30 carries, 94 yards).

It couldn’t throw the ball (16 of 34, 166 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions).

It couldn’t catch the ball (stopped counting at three drops).

It couldn’t protect against three-man rushes (four sacks allowed).

It couldn’t stop BYU at anything (548 yards allowed).

It couldn’t keep from committing stupid penalties (eight for 75 yards).

It couldn’t do anything to remind us of a team that — pause for laughter here — was once 4-0 and talking about its national championship and BCS aspirations.

It couldn’t even receive a favorable ruling on an on-side kick, which explains the loud laughter heard all the way from Norman, Okla.

The Pac-10/Mountain West Conference debate made for some lively moments at a postgame news conference but really meant little to the outcome. The only thing to be assured is that all those people who bet on Oregon should think of another way to squander money.

Leave it at this: If the Ducks are truly the fifth-best team in the Pac-10, there is a better-than-excellent chance BYU wouldn’t humiliate itself against anyone in that league.

“You’ll have to ask our players,” Bellotti responded when asked whether he thought his team showed up to play. “I think they have passion. I think they have heart. We did not play very well. So, then again, you can check with them any time.”

He then was asked what he might say to those Oregon fans who spent money on attending the game. “Come back next year,” Bellotti said. “We’ll be better.”

Talk about a no-brainer.

How in the world could they be worse?

Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.

Boy was I wrong. No track meet tonight as I had expected in BYU’s win (butt-kicking) over the Oregon Ducks. After the slow start in the 1^st quarter, the Cougs really cranked it up with the pressure on the Duck’s QBs and plenty of offense.

There were only two disappointing things that I can think of from the ESPN broadcast tonight. Number one, Brent Musburger and crew got so totally bored that they spent way too much time interviewing: Ryan Leaf, Jerry Tarkanian, and even Craig James (former SMU running back) who also was up in the booth. They just kept cutting back to the game as they chatted on and on and on… over the live feed of the game. Not a very professional production tonight.

The other disappointment was the Oregon head coach, Mike Belloti. With all of the class that Crowton displayed this past few weeks, and Bronco always a class act, the contrast was incredible. Of course, I am talking about the head coach’s slap at BYU by saying that the Cougs could not compete with the middle of the pack of the PAC-10. (I do not have the exact quote). That lack of respect showed up on the field with his players and all of the trash talking and personal fouls that went on.

So after the game he had a chance to redeem his pathetic attitude and give some props to BYU. He was asked if he felt different after having lost by thirty points to the Cougs. He said, “my opinion hasn’t changed.” Unbelievable!!!! He lost a chance to correct his wrong-headed and idiotic opinion, and showed his immaturity and hateful nature.

Oregon coach Belotti is now a “hiss and a byword” to me.

This makes me even more thankful for a “real man” - Bronco Mendenhall as BYU’s coach. No wonder that the team believed in him so much, and would do anything for him! I am also thankful that the rest of the nation got to see us on the big stage of ESPN. This has got to help in recruiting.

Congrats Cougars on a fantastic year!!

Now let’s see what happens Saturday night over in Ft. Worth…

Zoob

OK, I promised this would be up yesterday, but I forgot. Reminder: this game will be added on to the regular season score to determine the overall 2006 Pick ‘em Champion.

BYU vs. Oregon
(BYU favored by 3)

Apparently, BYU is going to be in their whites again, despite being the higher ranked team. The Las Vegas Bowl people can’t help but suck up to the big-money schools, even when BYU fans have pitched in probably quadruple what Oregon fans have to the Vegas Bowl coffers. Makes me sick. Down with Nike and it’s obese pockets and complete blindness to good sense! GRRRR!!!!

Originally written Friday, December 15^th, 2006

When I was about 14 or 15 years old, living in Mesa, Arizona, my buddy Jake invited me to go to a Phoenix Suns game with him and his dad. It had become a semi-regular occurrence since a few years before, and those games are some of the funnest times I can remember from those awkward mid-teen years.

This particular instance, though, sticks out in my mind today. It was Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Houston Rockets, a team that I learned to loathe during that time period. I hated Clyde Drexler, Sam Cassell, Robert Horry, and I really, really hated Mario Elie. They beat the Suns in the same series the previous year in seven games after the Suns had taken a 2-0 series lead. I wanted blood this year and had gotten it up to that point. The Suns had demolished the Rockets in games 1 and 2, lost game 3 in Houston, then stole game 4 to take a 3-1 lead that seemed like a sure thing to get the Suns to the Conference Finals. The Suns lost game 5 by a hair and ended up losing game 6 in Houston as well.

Today was the day we were going to take care of business. Jake and I were ready. We were decked out in our Suns gear, even sprayed our hair orange, and intended to see the Suns pull this one out. Long story made short: the Suns lost on a last-second three by Mario Elie, who blew the Suns fans a kiss as he celebrated (I still hate that guy).

Jake and I left dejected. As we were leaving downtown, Jake’s dad, a pretty even-keel and dryly humorous guy, quipped, “Well, do you think we should give up the tickets?”

Jake was instantly electrified. “What?! No way!” he blurted out.

The reason I tell you this is because as trivial as sports seems to us sometimes, and to some people all of the time, life wouldn’t be as enjoyable to me without it. Yesterday, Larry and Mo came down from our corporate offices in soulless Redmond to inform us that our office was being closed and our operations relocated to Redmond. Our services would no longer be needed. Most people were laid off immediately, including GoldenSpidey, another one of the SCL family. A small group including myself were granted a stay of execution for a month to help train our replacements from Washington. Which one of us got the better deal, Spidey or me, is still up in the air, but that’s a discussion for another time and place.

As the realization set in that I was being laid off, my thoughts immediately went to my wife and unborn daughter. I had hoped to enable my wife to quit her horrible job so she could preserve her health and prepare for the baby. That went out the window in a flash. Needless to say that the promotion I was in line for went out the window as well. It was a somber feeling. I went back to my office as the others were called in to receive their death sentences. When they got back, we all sat in our office, nobody really saying anything for a minute.

Then Spidey and I started talking. Amidst the expressions of hope and belief in the providence of God on our behalf, he and I expressed excitement about our fast-approaching trip to the Las Vegas Bowl. Why would such a seemingly trivial thought find its way in to our minds when a much more serious matter was at hand?

The answer, my friends, is not blowin’ in the wind. It’s a simple as this: sports have an important place in our world. It’s not about winning and losing as much as it is about bonding. Sports can bring people together in a way that few other things can. It can bring excitement to communities, relief in hard times, and foster a sense of loyalty through good times and bad (unless you’re a Ute, then you just come out of the cracks when the sun shines on your team, but I digress). Yesterday made that completely transparent to me. When our world was crashing around us yesterday, Spidey and I reached for a bond that meant something to us, something that could help us forget our problems for a while and enjoy the comradery that exists among us here at SCL and beyond.

Losing our jobs won’t have any effect on our ability to enjoy cheering on our team and representing our school at Sam Boyd Stadium next Thursday. It can’t have any effect. There is something magical about sports that only real fans can understand. Ask the Iragis, whose soccer team made a magical run during the 2004 Olympics and lifted the spirits of a people more downtrodden than you or I could ever understand. Even though I personally hated every second of it, I couldn’t help but notice how the community rallied around the U’s Final Four squad in 1998. For a lot of people, it really was a big deal, and it wasn’t people having messed up priorities like so many seem to think.

Those moments, of course, don’t last forever. The excitement can never be as fever-pitched as it is in the moment it happens, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important, that it doesn’t mean something, then or now. I can already tell you that it will mean something to be in the stadium when the Cougars take the field against Oregon, doing my part to lift the BYU players and give them as much of a home-field advantage as possible. It will mean something to cheer for my alma mater, a school that represents the marginalized majority taking on one of the fattest of the fat cats in a legalized cartel.

I have a hard time when I hear someone say “it’s just sports.” It’s not just sports. Not to me, anyway.

Good afternoon, ladies and gents! We’re here at the prestigious Shirts’ north Orem office desk for the handing out of the most ignominious sports awards in all of SCLdom: the Bibbies, so named for the 1999 BYU football uniforms that were so ugly, the NCAA quickly drafted a rule to make them illegal (much praise be to the NCAA). Having repented of their stupidity by changing the design, BYU’s higher brass has obtained forgiveness and BYU fans have pledged to remember the bibs no more…except that our award is named after them.

And so it is on this slow news day in college football that we pause to recognize the worst of the worst-looking to have blighted the playing field this season. We abhor you, the recipients of the 2006 SCL Bib Awards. May your colors burn unceremoniously in a sudden flare of common sense!

• The second runner-up in the 2006 Bib Awards goes to…the University of Wyoming! Powder River let ‘er buck! It’s been a while since Wyoming has received any kind of award, and they should be proud to receive this distinction among such stiff competition.

• The first runner-up in the 2006 Bib Awards goes to…Boise State University! No matter how well the Broncos play on the field, it’ll never be considered pretty until somebody knocks some fashion sense into the school’s administration. I mean, it is Idaho, but an improvement is definitely possible.

• And the winner of the 2006 Bib Award goes to…dang, I can’t get this envelope open. Who glued this thing shut? Oh, there we go…the University of Oregon. Never has such bounteous funding resulted in such a design disaster. The sophistry and bravado of Nike has inflicted optical suffering upon all, proving once again that money can’t solve your problems, especially if you’re a Ducks fan. If my child were the one to produce such a heinous set of football robes, I would never come out during the daylight hours again.

Scoring was tabulated by the Chief Vote Counter Guy with 3 points awarded for a first place vote, 2 points for a second place vote, 1 point for a third place votes, and no points awarded for 4^th or 5^th place. Voters were painstakingly selected based on the criterium of membership in Shirts’ Cougar Legion. All votes have been verified and are available for public viewing on the SCL website.