The hours leading up to Saturday's game were pretty damn awesome. I had some drinks, ate, met a lot of good friends I hadn't seen since the end of last season and really soaked in the entire scene. The tailgate lots were packed, people were buzzing about and I think it started really setting in that we were a Pac-12 member now.
It was a perfect way to start the day. That's what worried me.
Mother Nature here in Utah has a funny sense of humor. A few years ago, back in the '07 season, I remember walking through a nasty snow storm in September to watch Utah take on Utah State. I sat, soaking wet, throughout that whole miserable game because, at the time, I didn't know how many wins I would actually see that season (the Utes entered 1-3 and were coming off a crushing and embarrassing defeat to UNLV the week before).
Point is, you can't ever predict what the weather is going to be like here. Especially at this point of the year.
In Utah, you're generally assured the first two to three weeks of the season will provide perfect football weather (depending on what your definition is, of course - for me, it's shorts and sun). After that, it gets sketchy the closer to December you get.
Saturday, though, it was bliss. Beautiful weather. Warm, but not too warm. Breezy, but not too breezy.
But like I said, as we inched closer to kickoff, the more worried I became because, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I felt like I was having a dangerous and hellish sense of deja vu.
Maybe it was the few shots, a couple Long Islands and the beer, but I definitely felt like I had been here before.
I found myself thinking back to the '06 Boise State game. This was another game that fell on conference weekend and the weather was just down right unbelievably amazing.
Unfortunately, the game wasn't. The Utes got their teeth kicked in and as I sat there watching this unfold from my seats, melting away in the late-September sun, I wondered how such a great day could sour so fast.
I wanted to print a t-shirt that read: I went to the BSU game and all I got was this horrible sunburn because that's exactly how I felt as I left the stadium.
Saturday, once the sun started setting, and the breeze set in, it wasn't nearly as hot as it was earlier in the day, but the end result wasn't much different than what I experienced that Saturday five years ago. A great day pissed away by the results on the field.
Then I started thinking, maybe as I was sobering up, has there ever been a huge game at RES where the weather was unusually better than it typically is and the Utes won - at least under this current coaching staff?
Last year's TCU game was unusually warm for November and we all know how that turned out.
In '08, the two biggest wins of that season at home, against the Frogs and BYU, took place in the frigid depths of winter. I'm still trying to warm up from that TCU game.
Hell, even last year's BYU game was colder than a witch's tit (full disclosure, I've actually never touched the tit of a witch, so I don't know if this description is apt) and the Utes won - albeit in ugly fashion.
There has to be a reason for this, right?
Maybe people lounge around too much in the warm weather and become too relaxed prior to the game. I know in November, when I'm tailgating and it's so cold, even my breath turns to ice, my only thought is total survival.
You keep warm by any means necessary and it's unlikely you're going to relax to the point of a near-coma.
Then, when you get into the stadium, you're energized and ready to go because the only thing keeping you alive is screaming loud and jumping up and down.
Is there a correlation here, folks, or am I just mad?
Regardless, I hope you at least got out and enjoyed the warm weather. It's supposed to be much cooler, with rain, next Saturday. Hey, maybe that means we'll win!