Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Utes! Da da da Da da Daaaah: UTES!

Basketball

What a great week last week was! My brother-in-law, Taylor, the talented actor/singer/musician and apparently good student (ladies, mark your calendars: he turns 16 on Februrary 4) won free tickets to the University of Utah v. Gonzaga basketball game. Kids these days win all kinds of free swag from their schools -- event tickets...even cars. I was a pretty darn good student growing up and I think the most prestigious prize I ever won was a coupon for a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. Mmmm....pizza. The point is: I couldn't hop in my personal pan pizza and drive to school.

Anywho, Taylor was kind enough to invite me to go to the game, along with his dad and grandpa. We parked at an ultra-secret parking lot downtown and took Trax up to the arena. I can't tell you where the ultra-secret parking lot is, so don't ask. Nobody else can know. The lot is free, and the location is ideal, however, the number of spots is limited. I've already said too much. Besides, you all wouldn't make it past the retinal scan. Or the dobermans.

We arrived at the arena and made our way to our seats. Luckily we had hired a Sherpa and I had a couple of bottles of oxygen, because our seats were on row 41. We had just made ourselves at home when 2 teenaged boys with unfortunate potty mouths sat next to me. They talked about a lot of things, from who likes who to who doesn't like who to who might like who. It was kind of a whirlwind. But they didn't stop talking.

As the game drew near, I was amazed by the number of people sporting Gonzaga apparel. Where was all this support coming from? (Gonzaga is located in Spokane, Washington.) Does Gonzaga have a Salt Lake campus? Or were these just die-hard John Stockton fans?

The game was fantastic. The Utes came out on a 14-2 run and it looked like they would handle #17 ranked Gonzaga. The Bulldogs came back, although they never took the lead. Taylor left with 2 minutes to go in the first half to go get some snacks. Trying to be a true Utah fan, I waited until halftime to go, not wanting to miss any of the game. This turned out to be a mistake. Because Taylor got back from his snack run during halftime, having missed only 2 minutes of the game. Whereas I chose the slowest line at the slowest snackbar in the history of the Huntsman center. I seriously could have killed and grilled my own cow, as well as planted, grown, harvested, sliced, and deep fried my own potato chips, and still got my "Ute Burger" faster than I did that night. And I missed about 8 minutes of gametime, in addition to being there during all of halftime.

With three minutes to go in the game, a miracle occurred: the two kids next to me stopped talking. With two minutes to go, the wheels started falling of for Utah. We couldn't break their full-court press, we had troubles imbounding the ball, and we had some some ill-advised fouls. With six seconds left in the game and Utah winning by only one point, Gonzaga stole the imbound pass. They took a good shot and missed, then missed two tip-ins as time expired. Huzzah! Utah won. It was a great night; thanks again for the ticket, Taylor.

Football

Of course, the big night of the week was Friday night, when the Utes took on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl. During the day I had run a few errands around town and I was really surprised by the amount of Utah gear people were wearing. As mentioned in Laura's post, we went over to the Paschall's to watch the game. The game was awesome. After our third touchdown in the first quarter, I remember looking at the other people in the room and thinking "Is this really happening? Are we really punching Alabama in the mouth?" And even though Alabama scored to get within 4 points, the Utes tacked on 10 more points and really was in control of the game. As I was driving home, it really began to sink in that this football team is the real deal. It's been a whole lot of fun this week to listen to/read comments by nationally-known sportscasters talking about little ol' Utah. What a great win for the University and for the state. Some people still don't think we can hang with the big boys, but some have decided that this team is for real. ESPN's (formerly Sports Illustrated's) Rick Reilly is among them.



On a related topic: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has announced that he will investigate bringing federal anti-trust charges against the BCS for excluding some universities from their multi-million dollar national championship.



Dear Attorney General Shurtleff:
My name is Quinn Lavender, and although you don't know me, I'm pretty tight with former governor Mike Leavitt, so please listen to what I have to say. Please spend our taxpayer money fighting crime on the streets of Utah. When you've stopped crime in Utah, you may go ahead and use our money to fix the college football championship system.


Please don't tell me that this is about getting more money for our colleges. I went to the University of Utah, and I learned one immutable fact while there: tuition never comes down. Not with a good economy, not with a state budget surplus, not with 8 consecutive bowl game victories.



Very truly yours,
Quinn



So, it was a great week to be a Ute. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Hee hee. Mormons are funny.

Although it looks like he is celebrating, this photo of Stevenson Sylvester was taken right before he got attacked by a hawk with very large talons.

David Reed makes the most exciting catch of the game. I still don't know how he caught that ball with the defender all over him and a hand right in his face.

Glen Coffee: meet Paul Kruger! (Who better to stop a guy named Coffee than a bunch of guys from Utah?

John Parker Wilson: meet Paul Kruger! Paul met a lot of people during the game.

Brent "The Man of" Casteel

That's right, 'Bama -- you're getting smacked in the mouth by the Utes!

Sugar Bowl Champs

Sugar Bowl Most Outstanding Player

The perfect season. 13-0. We beat 4 top-25 teams. We beat the team that was number one in the country for 5 weeks, and we beat them more convincingly than Florida did. Yet Florida gets to play for the national championship and we get:

A fake trophy.

Here are some motivational posters that Alabama fans can use for next year:
(I apologize that one of them has a swear in it)

And one more for my BYU buddies out there:

Seriously, couldn't you just have taken care of Arizona in the Las Vegas bowl?

Quinn