Hard to imagine it'll ever get easier than that...

I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Ande Miller’s senior year, the Utes lost in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament as a #2 seed to Miami, Ohio. I didn’t have any illusions of winning the tournament, but a sweet 16 was expected and an elite 8 would have been a solid year. Utah has only made it to the sweet 16, once, since.

Going 8-4 and playing for a Rose Bowl in the 1st ever PAC-12 Championship would have been an amazing finish to this year. Losing to a team that you’re favored to beat, when such a rarely attained prize is on the line, makes the sting so much worse. This loss is going to hurt for a while.

Coleman’s misses – particularly his second chip shot
Hays for getting sacked twice instead of throwing the ball away… ever.
Conroy Black or Mo Lee (Can’t remember which) getting the penalty the third down stop
Our D-Line for never getting to the QB – And allowing him to run way too much
Our secondary for falling asleep 3-4 times and allowing big plays
Our O-Line and John White for not absolutely dominating in the 1st half
Our entire Offense for doing nothing the 1st half
Vakapuna’s fumble
Our three players who almost recovered the onside kick
Hays in general – His passes were abysmal the whole game
So many injuries (Not really a grievance with the players, but situational)

Any one of those things made a difference of 3 points in the game, independently and mutually exclusive of each other. The same perfect storm that combined to get us into the PAC-12 championship seemed to simultaneously combine to keep us out. very sad. I am mad at Coleman for missing the FGs, but no more than those other grievances throughout the game. I can’t even blame the refs, they actually did an adequate job, possibly even giving us some favors throughout.

Maybe my only compliment is for Devonte Christopher, who really put himself on the line down the stretch on the final drive. Made some great plays. Him going out hurt really bad.

Worst finish to a season that I can remember in a very long time, probably since the Kaneshiro FG or the Harline pass. This really ranks right up there.

Now that ASU and UCLA lost, this is so much harder to take. It’s just so disgusting on so many levels.

Now, a shout out to the Utes for all they didn’t do right:

-Big ups to Kyle Whittingham for twice (gutlessly) opting to punt on 4th-and-1 when Colorado went for it on 4th-and-4 inside the 30 and converted.

-Props to Coleman Petersen for not knowing how to get mentally focused. Once he missed the 26-yarder, he was absolutely worthless for the rest of the game. Whitt should have known in the final 60 seconds that going to the damaged Petersen was NOT an option.

-Props to Whittingham for NOT remembering the USC game. In the Coliseum, instead of taking one shot at the end zone (and the win), he played ultra conservatively for the tying FG in the game’s waning seconds. Of course, USC blocked it and won the game. It seems Whittingham completely forgot about that vs. Colorado when he gutlessly dumped the ball off to Vakapuna on 3rd-and-17 and instructed him to fall to the turf in the middle of the field to set up his distracted kicker, who still had the 26-yard shank dancing around his head.

-Shout out to John Cullen and the RG who replaced Brenner, who both allowed a sack on Hays around the Colo 25 at the end of the game. The first resulted in a fumble and the second resulted in a 6 yard loss. Not the best moves, considering they were trying to get in FG position.

-Props to the kicker, who can’t pick up a football. The onside kick bounced perfectly from the turf and into his hands. But apparently, kickers don’t ever practice CATCHING the ball. Absolutely unacceptable, and absolutely disgusting.

-Big ups to the fans in the north end zone (and those on the canon), who apparently can’t tell whether a FG is good. Both fooled me on the final play, when they reacted like we tied the game. Since I was sitting in the East stands, I didn’t know the kick was no good until I saw the refs waving it off.

-Shout out to Mo Lee, who is singlehandedly responsible for 7 of Colorado’s points. We really appreciate that unnecessary roughness show of idiocy on CU’s first dive. Sure it was 3rd down, and sure we stopped them, and sure it would’ve prevented that TD they went on to score… but we realize that you just really HAD to deliver that final hit to show you’re toughness. Ppreciate that.

-Shout to Jon Hays and Harvey Langi, who apparently practice running into each other on handoffs.

Finally, MAJOR props to the Utah defense… allegedly the Pac 12’s top-rated defense… for not stopping the league’s worst team. Every bit as anemic and inept as Utah’s offense, Colorado looked like a running & passing powerhouse against you guys. Hansen looked like a Heisman candidate and their RB looked like LaMichael James out there. I’d love to know exactly why it looked like you guys DIDN’T CARE, for the entire game.

We were all treated to a sickening and nauseating display of football on Friday. And that nausea continued through Saturday when we saw ASU and UCLA lay down. If a spot in the inaugural Pac 12 Title Game isn’t enough motivation for you to beat the worst team in the conference, then you guys are indeed a totally lost cause. If you guys can’t beat a team that hasn’t won a road game in 4 years… at your home stadium (where you strung together a recent streak of 20+ consecutive wins) then God help you all in the bowl game.

Jon Hays sucks bad. Coleman Petersen is a head case. The offensive line is as porous as Swiss cheese. And the entire coaching staff has totally failed to inspire this team.

What an achievement it would’ve been, to WIN the Pac 12 South in your very first year as a BCS program… with a backup QB. Utah’s resiliency would’ve been on full display next week on Fox national TV @ Oregon, and millions around the nation would’ve been talking about how this tough team from Salt Lake City really does deserve to be in the BCS.

Instead, now, all anyone (who even bothers to look) will do is laugh and point and joke about how embarrassing it must be to lose at home to such a completely road-impotent program like Colorado.

Congratulations on the EPIC choke job, Utes. Here’s hoping that in 2012 you take your status as a Pac 12 program more seriously.

1. I was in the stadium 2-1/2 hours early. Killed a couple hours sitting in the NEZ, watching warmups. A group of our players came out for a pre warm-up. The whole time they were tossing the ball around and working on blocks, it seemed like they were more interested in posturing, practicing touchdown dances and showing off tattoos than warming up for the biggest game of the season. Some of the guys on the team seem more obsessed with their hair (and good hair it is by NFL standards) than being hard-nosed ballers.

I’m not an aspiring professional athlete, so I’m not sure how much joking around is necessary to keep things loose before the game. In my field, a warmup is relaxed but focused. Seems like our guys came out less serious than during the snowy warmup for UCLA. The difference in intensity two hours before the game was obvious.

2. I watched Colorado’s kicker warm up. He methodically went through a series of kicks from every yard line on both hash marks. I don’t think he missed a single kick, and the long might have been from the 45 yard line. He seemed completely oblivious to other players warming up around and a few yards in front of him. I told a couple of people that I hoped he was the kind of player that gets nervous under pressure because he didn’t miss anything warming up. Fitting that he made the difference in the game.

While he was going about business practicing his kicks, our guys were doing the touchdown dance and pretending to be in the Superbowl . . .

Here’s hoping for a team change to business first. This is the attitude that impresses me most about Kyle Whittingham. I know firsthand that it is tough to get a bunch of 18-20 year olds to buy in to this philosophy when they have just made it to the big time.

If there is one positive, it is that we are less likely to lose Coach Whitt to the NFL this year.

This is one more way this feels like 2007.

Bad start, rash of serious season altering injuries to key people, very bad loss that looked like we dressed the cheerleaders grandmothers instead of our players, yet a streak of wins, but lost the rivalry game at the end.

Now, we need to get our Sh**t together, go play like this team can when they all focus, and win the bowl and the cycle will be complete.

I’m not saying next year will be a repeat of ‘08, but I see the possibility of improvement. Whoever we play in the PAC, if we are better prepared for the injuries, and have an offense that doesn’t require the D to play 3/4 the game and produce miracles, we can be competitive in this league. No giants here, nobody lightyears better than us just good teams top to bottom.

Now that we’ve seen the elephant, lets just put this in the scrapbook under "@#(%$W(& Buffs’ and come out and kick butt next year, like we know we can.

And I am all ready planning on Boulder next year when we pay back these gold and black bozos for keeping us out of the championship game.

I know USC has scholarship restrictions the next few years, but this may have been your best chance to make the title game for a while anyways. Until you start to change your recruiting to match teh other PAC schools its going to be tough to win the south division.

“Utah, welcome to the Pac-12 way: Utah figured out that consistency is frowned upon in the Pac-12. The Utes, with their home loss to Colorado, figured out that it’s darn near required within the conference’s muddled middle that teams inexplicably face-plant at least once (or twice a year). So you have Cal getting bricked at UCLA, Arizona State throwing up on itself at Washington State, UCLA getting bombed at Arizona and Washington flopping at Oregon State. The Utes are typically great at home. Colorado had lost 24 in a row away from its home stadium. But logic doesn’t always rule in the Pac-12. The rule is inexplicable results are part of the conference’s annual tapestry.”

going to the Buffs here. A thing being missed here is that the Utes caught the Buffs getting healthy for the first time in a few months. Our record is 3-10, yes, but look at our schedule, then look at our injury situation, then multiply it by Dan Hawkins’ IQ.

More importantly though, the Buffs were the more mentally tough team. The Buffs have horrific depth, but enough playmakers here and there that, if the team is mentally strong, will cause problems. The difference Friday was that the Buffs remained mentally strong throughout an entire game on the road for the first time in a long time. If you look over the course of the now expired road streak, it became increasingly mental as it progressed. Early on in the streak, the Buffs went from being in games late against Alabama, Nebraska, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and coming up just short… to likely starting to think that it would never end and getting blown out after the first initial punch to the face. So while the Buffs made enough errors (fumble out of endzone/no points on a red zone drive, countless O-Line penalties, missed wide open TD, INT) to give the game away (and also overcame an injury to its best RB), they didn’t implode when things got tight.

Good luck in your bowl game.

Arizona State, a month ago thought to be a shoe-in as Pac-12 South champs, saw an improbable collapse…

Nope, that’s just ASU being ASU.