Hey Block U,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Block U from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Block U and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Block U now has all the basic information about the Utah Running Utes and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Utah Running Utes material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Is anybody else miffed about the yearly price increase of their Utah football tickets? This year I am paying $310. a seat. That's almost $52. a game. In addition to that my tailgate pass has gone up. I pay nearly $400. just to park my tailgate vehicles in the tailgating lot! I know a lot of 30+ year fans that have turned in their tickets this season because of the yearly increases. Maybe I'm hallucinating but I remember Chris Hill telling us (after the new stadium was built) that he would keep our ticket prices low, what a lie. I guess the seats will eventually all be owned by corporates and all the hard-core fans will be gone.

Quarterback thoughts.

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It was worth staying up until 12:44 am. to see the Utes pull one out. It seemed that the breaks finally went their way. The bottom line is" Winning is more fun than losing". That was our motto back in '69. It doesn't matter how it gets done.  Utah had enough Defense to seal the deal. next year. This victory will help the team in the off season as well as having won 7 bowl games in a row.  

Things that bugged the hell out of me from day one of spring practice.  The offense was way ahead of the defense and the comments of Johnson and Casteel made when asked how they would do this season.  Johnson, "I feel that I'll be the MVP in the conference, and Casteel, "I feel dissed for not being selected on the All-Conference Team.  I, I, I, I, is no way to start the season.  Johnson may know the offense better than anyone out there, but at times when the offense is struggling, and when dumbass Lug-nut it calling bad plays, he gets the deer in the headlights look every single tough game.  And he has the best receiving corp in the league and bearly gets 'A Buck-Fifty' a Game.  GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!  And worst of all, he gets out played by the shit-head-down-south, and this is his first year in the league.  I could go on and on about our offense and dumb-ass Lug-nut but I hope some of you will understand.  
Now Coach Witt needs to get this team to start believing and defend our home field.  Yes he did a great job after losing our key starter at the beginning, but must we have a reason or bulletin material to get motivated to beat a team??  We should go out every game and play hard and leave in all out there.  Oregon State, Air Force, and UNLV, we didn't have any bulletin material to get us motivated to beat them.  The rest are revenge games and games we should win.  I hate to say this, but the fucking TDS would jump in front of a truck and believe they could stop it if their coach told them.  Our team would have some doubts if that happened.  I really hope our team will step it up and start playing as a team, but as long as Coach Witt is still in bed with Lug-nut, we'll always be the second or third best team in the league.  
BUT WHAT THE HELL, "WIN OR LOSE, WE'LL STILL BOOZE"  

Do you think Utah would be ranked?

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I can't believe some people's thinking after this game.  The refs lost it for us but everyone seems to be focusing on Utah not coming through on 4th and 18.  Yes, that was a huge opportunity to close the deal.  However, that mistake does warrant giving the game away.  Byu did not have to make another play following the 4th down conversion.  It needed at least 2 more first downs after that conversion to get in decent field goal range for its kicker.  It was given 30 yards on an early Christmas gift from the officials.  The personal foul was a joke.  It was a good football hit.  How do you call that after letting Keihl's hit on Brooks go in the first half?

As bad as that call was, the pass interference was worse.  The ball was way under thrown, Byu's receiver pulls Stanford into him, and Stanford turns to look for the ball.  An incredibly horrible call!!!!

This got me thinking of the times in the past when Utah has been screwed by officials.  I assume we aren't the only ones but it sure seems as a Ute that we get the short end of the stick quite a bit.  Here are a few on my all time "got screwed" list in no particular order:

1994? at Texas (basketball) - Officials allow Texas a catch and shoot with 1/10 of a second remaining for a game winner in Austin.

2002 at Arizona (football) - Utah's apparent game winning touchdown catch to Josh Lyman is called out of bounds when replays indicate that Lyman's foot was in bounds by a good foot and a half.  

2000 Byu (Football) - Lavell Edwards' final game.  Luke Staley fumbles on Byu's game winning drive but officials call him down; replays clearly showed that the ball was loose before Staley was down.

1998 at New Mexico (Basketball) - Utah goes into New Mexico undefeated and leads by 7 points with a little over a minute remaining.  Andre Miller is then mugged and tackled twice without a whistle that allows New Mexico the opportunity to hit a game winner at the buzzer.  

2007 at Byu (Football) - A personal foul is called on Robert Johnson on an apparent clean hit as the ball passes John Pitta.  Without the penalty it would have been 3 and 10 for Byu with it needed at least 15 to 20 yards to get into field goal range.  To pour salt on the wound, on the very next play R.J. Stanford is called for pass interference for playing "too good" of defense giving Byu an additional fifteen yards and setting it up for a touchdown.     Utah is flagged for 10 times for 95 yards in the game compared to 4 for 43 for Byu.  

Did I miss anything?

It's time to give Coach Whit a break.  He's turned around was seemed to be a season headed for complete disaster.  He never panicked and has trusted himself and his staff to make things right.  This Utah team is completely different than it was 4 weeks ago.  I have always liked Whit but after the Vegas game I had my doubts and I could no longer defend him.  That loss is still inexcusable but I've moved on and I think the team has too.

The TCU win was a huge one.  I realize TCU is struggling but it was a game both teams needed desperately to win to have any success this season.  One of the most impressive things about the win was the way the Utes came back after things didn't go right.  After the block punt and TCU's quick touchdown I thought things were going bad really quick.  I expected the team to fold when TCU took a 14-10 lead.  It was great to see Utah immediately answer with Johnson's TD pass to Wilson.  Utah immediately seized back control of the game and never turned back.  Furthermore, at the end of the game there were some horrible penalties; especially the pass interference call that negated the interception that didn't seem to affect the team.  

I think the coaching staff and the team showed poise in the game that they lacked earlier in the year.  I credit this attitude adjustment to Whittingham.  Next week will determine whether or not this team has really changed or if we're just being fooled again.  It will be interesting to see if Utah has a let down at CSU or if they go in there and crush CSU like it should.  The CSU game will determine whether Whittingham has truly changed the mentality of this team.

Kyle Whittingham: Code Name Quarterback Killer
If kyle whittingham was in a spy movie his secrect identity would be quarterback killer.

Continue reading this post »

Was that the stock market or Utah football?  It's really doesn't matter they both crashed on a black monday.  

Where did Kyle Wittingham go?  This is not the same person who once graced our sidelines with a fiery determination to win.  He used to expect perfection out of his defenses.  Now he seems lost as a head coach.  Is it because he is trying so hard to be something other than himself (Lavell, Urban) that who he was no longer exists?  It is sad to see.

Coaching in college football is everything.  They have complete control, they recruit, the hire their assistants, the play a role in scheduling, they coach, game plan and motivate.  Utah has always had some of the best talent in the conference WAC or MWC as we do today.  The ability to take that talent above itself "consistently" is the mark of a good coaching staff.  

Great players in college do not elevate themselves. Show me a consistent winner week in and week out without dramatic swings one-way or the other, and you will find a solid, well-coached team.  Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama (pre Saban) are all feeling the same pain we Utah fans are feeling.  They have even better talent yet their coaching staff's fail to deliver week in and week out.  So is our lot.

Hey it is clear our stock price has been slumping and is on a downward trend, no question about it.  What happens to CEO's when the company under performs under their watch?  Call a board meeting; we will be looking at a new CEO soon I guarantee it.

The worst part of it all is that we need a consistent long term coach, inconsistency in our head coaching position is almost as bad as inconsistency on the field, we had hoped Kyle Wittingham would deliver on that and be here for the long haul, I know that's what he wanted too.  It seems neither of us will have that wish granted on this BLACK MONDAY.