The Stones are doing it and in a few weeks, Utah begins its own farewell tour.
It'll mark an end of an era where, for most its history, the Utes were conference comrades with Air Force (1980), Colorado State (1938), BYU (1922), New Mexico (1951), San Diego State (1978), UNLV (1996) and Wyoming (1909).
The Cowboys have been with the Utes the longest. They both joined the Rocky Mountain Conference in 1909, departed for the Skyline Conference together and eventually formed the Western Athletic and Mountain West conferences.
By late November, for the first time in over 100 years, the Pokes and Utes will belong to different conferences.
It's been a rather remarkable run and there certainly has been some great rivalries built over the years. It's going to be hard watching many of these rivalries die. It's going to be hard knowing with one fell swoop, an entire history is no more.
Sure, we'll see these teams (especially BYU) on the schedule down the road. It's just not going to be a yearly thing. Or even a decade thing. It just may be, unfortunately, a generation thing.
So begins the 2010 farewell tour. The stops along the way should prove interesting.
