I hold more affinity for The Mountain West Conference, it makes more sense and holds more beauty than this cobbled together cockamamie contrived pile of bull s**t.
Physical geography matters.
This might come as a shock to you but for many of us food is not the main focus of our existence.
This schedule sucks. It really does. Not a single interesting game. What a step down from the PAC-12.
Like others have said, this conference wonât exist in 2030. Thatâs the good news. We will be in a better place come then.
Southern Utah, Baylor, Utah State. Bleh. Three terrible teams.
Oklahoma StateâŚeh. What a snoozefest. I know everyone likes to talk about how OSU will compete for a B12 title and they will show us what real fans are and blah, blah, blah. We recruit better than they do, we develop better than they do and even with the best RB in the nation, we rush for more yards per game. Hard to be impressed.
Arizona - will enjoy kicking their â â â . Run up the score pricks.
ASU, TCU, Houston - always fun beating ASU. TCU will be a fun game from the past, but they donât look to be very good. Many people have them competing for a bowl game. And HoustonâŚeh. Another mid major game. Boring.
BYU, Colorado. Meh. BYU sucks. Colorado went 1-8 in the P12 last year. They will be better, but âcompete for a bowl gameâ better. Thatâs not great.
Iowa State, UCFâŚto quote Guardians of the GalaxyâŚâWho?â
What a â â â â â â schedule. Honestly. 10-3 would be a very disappointing year.
We went from a PAC-12 schedule to having BYU, UCF and Houston, G5 teams, be conference games. Baylor looks to be garbage. Iowa State and Colorado are borderline bowl teams. TCU is projected to be a borderline bowl team and Arizona is going through a lot.
Oklahoma State is supposed our premier opponent next fall. Think about that. Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA. Nah. We want Oklahoma State.
These are my thoughts exactly.
So would it be presumptuous to travel to the UCF game and then fly to Dallas for the BIG12 Championship game?
The breakup of the PAC was the ultimate rug-pull. But this schedule is like taking that rug, rolling it up, and handing it to 1998 Mark McGuire to use like a baseball bat to your face.
Iâve heard that itâs better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all, but if Iâd known that this was the ultimate path of the PAC, Iâd have been in favor of staying in the MWC.
Apparently, neither does money because going to the MWC is going to be less profitable than the Big XII. Fact is how you are talking about the Big XII schools most people see SLC. A Backward state filled with LDS people who hate progressives. Sure you are an AAU school but other than that you are in the middle of nowhere and why would you be invited to the Big 1G. You were the addition to a conference that didnât last 15 years. A Back to Back champion of a failed conference that has little to no appeal to be added to the Big 2 conferences.
See how callous that sounds? Thatâs how your rants about the Big 12 sound. A conference that is obviously stronger than the Pac 12 and ACC because they werenât dumb enough to join an alliance with the conference that killed the P12, the Big 1G.
Most people still see Utah as a âG5 teamâ as well. Thatâs why SMU, Cal, and Stanford were invited to the ACC. The arrogance of having a cup of coffee in the Pac 12 has gone to some of yâallâs heads.
I love Utah. I became a fan of how the fanbase supported their program. The voices crapping all over the Big XII is wild to me. Also, I look at sports as entertainment and a chance to experience place not like where I live. So thus my food comments.
Agreed. The whining is on a post football zoob loss level.
Completely agree. This is also how most people view SLC on the west coastâŚSome of the points about Utah are true sad to say.
If we continue the trajectory of growth - not just football but also academics and academic research, we will be OK. Yeah, the PAC 12 was everything the BIG 12 isnât - regionally compact, academic/research focused, and easy access for fanbase travel. If we figure out how to win the whole â â â â â â â thing sooner than later, maybe the stay is less than a cup of coffee. Anyway, as most of the players will be doing something other than playing football when they graduate, letâs hope they took full advantage of the educational opportunities.
I am still a believer in the adage âThose who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.â The old exploded-sized WAC didnât work at all, and in the end it fell apart. Though these super conferences might be better funded than the old WAC ever was, that money is about to be tested like no other by the âHawaii effectâ - in short, exploding travel costs and no meaningful away game revenue from ticket sales to buffer the costs (yes, travel tix matter). Unless we can figure out a marketing scheme ala Notre Dame and sell merch like no other during televised games away, this could get ugly really fast.
In the end it is what it is - for better or worse. Itâs probably better to embrace the horror realizing it is likely short term than to go all blue blood and pretend what happened is beneath our dignity. For better or worse, we have only been a football school since 2003. Before that, I remember attending numerous games full of empty seats. The only time we sold out prior to then was when TDS came to town - and in several of those visits our stadium was 50-50 split (but it was full).
The wife said no to Orlando because she wants a LoCal roadie better than the last one six years ago. No Dog Beach stay this time.
Youâre not a Utah fan and dont have the history. Imagine the University of Alabama regulated to the ACC in football (not that Iâm comparing Utah to Alabama) and your football schedule were suddenly filled with games against Boston College, Syracuse, NC State, etc. when years prior youâre playing LSU, Auburn, Georgia and Tennessee? Would there not be Bama fans disgruntled at that change?
I fully realize that Utah doesnt have the same cache as a USC, UW or Oregon but games against those schools made the entire season. We were spoiled being able to play those schools.
I crap on the Big 12 because of a larger issue. I crap on Orlando and Ames and Waco and Manhattan not because they are bad places, but they are the result of a larger issue.
That issue is greed. That a nearly ideal setup from a geographical, fan-based, student-athlete-friendly point-of-view was blown up for the sake of a few schools to get a larger television contract based on one sport. One sport in a much larger universe, that will affect thousands of student athletes in a measurable negative way.
The reason I bring up the Mountain West is that it still made sense for the reasons above. It was easier to travel to places within the conference for fans and athletes. Yes, there was less money involved. I donât care. Prestige is great. But the fact of the matter is that these are UNIVERSITIES and they should be focusing on education. But they arenât. Theyâre running administration for football teams. Not basketball, not track, not swimming, not volleyball, not geology, not engineering, not ballet, not art. Football.
This shift is going to affect the âminorâ sports the most, and womenâs sports in particular. Itâs a Title IX violation for a creative attorney. And itâs the straw that broke this camelâs back.
I feel instead of us making rather disrespectful statements about the members of our new conference, we should acknowledge many of them are in a similar situation. Oklahoma State fans used to be excited about playing the Sooners, but will no longer face them in conference play. Texas Tech and Baylor who have been in the same conference as the Longhorns going back to the Southwest Conference days wonât face Texas in conference play either.
Maybe in a decade or so the whole thing blows up again and we go back to smaller regional conferences that donât include schools on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Less travel for all the student athletes and fans can drive to road games and conference title events instead of hopping on a 5 hour airplane flight.
All true. My hope is that Taylor Randallâs plan to position Utah for the coming megaconference era pans out. I dream that maybe there will be four divisions or something similar, and that we will be in the westernmost division. That would likely help with many of the issues you note. I just hope it happens in my lifetime. (But I used to say that about Utah joining the PAC-12. So maybeâŚ)
I have no interest in Florida for football unless we are playing Florida or Florida State. And Iâve been to Disney World. I prefer the California version.
You Confederate types still are fighting the Civil War and thinking the only football that matters is in the SEC, the state of Alabama specifically.
If Oregon or Washington went to the Big 12, they would be playing the Big 12 conference championship every year except when Utah got into it. Right now, I think Utah is a class above the rest of the dregs in the Big 12, especially those arrogant jerks down at byu-provo.
Utah playing Washington, Oregon, or USC were important games, often nationally. Utah having a chance to go to the Rose Bowl (oops, we went, so it was more than a chance) was incredible. I donât know what Bowl the Big 12 champion go to. The Weedeater Bowl? The Bisquick Pancake Bowl? The boring Midwest Bowl?
I wish the four corner schools had stuck together, all of which are AAU academic schools, and tried to work something else. But those morons at Colorado screwed it up.
Utah in the Big 12 is the most boring crap I can think of.
Go Syracuse!!!
On the other hand, this dialogue has become mostly irrelevant to many people, myself including, D-I âcollegeâ football and basketball are cooked, toast, stick a fork in them. Similar to the Ship of Theseus, they have morphed, changed, to such an extent that in reality they no longer exist. I doubt Iâll ever be paying to attend either in the future. One of the main problems was that they got too big, out of balance. But there is a pervasive mindset in our culture that more is better. Thankfully, bucking this trend, there are entities like Silverton Mountain, the best ski area in Colorado, which has been operating with only one double chair lift for 22 years, and Alta Utah, to many the greatest ski area on Earth, which in the last few years has reduced their chairs from seven to five.
At the conclusion of the 2022 NCAA ski championships at Park City and Soldier Hollow, I visited an empty Rice-Eccles stadium in the afternoon, the sky was clear and the stadium was covered with 5" of snow, the first time I had been there since the expansion. The silent and magnificent stadium was awesome to behold. But what also struck me was that this appears to be more like what a professional sports venue should be, and also, how the Uâs football program had become so big that it was now almost an institution beyond and outside of the University of Utah. A leviathan.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. - Edward Abbey
Laugh out loud!
Perspective here. Alabama wasnât in the Sun Belt and move to the SEC and then put in the ACC. That said, Iâd be ok with it for the reason I AM NO LONGER IN THE SUN BELT! Also, I think the thing is we would still be in the same footprint.
That said, let me tell you as an outside the games that I think that are 
on your schedule and I am hyped to watch as an outsider that leans toward the Utes:
This game to me in on the level of SC and Oregon. OSU is one of those programs that always fields a top tier squad. It will be interesting to see how the new coach does. Solid game with the Devil. Hell Yeah this game is going to be fun. Another great program that is underrated. I love the city and think it should be packed with Utes. Blow it off all you want but this is going to be awesome. Beating down Deion again and watching the hype die. SOLID Football program and they play top tier football on about every other year. This team is loaded and can win the conference. This game may come down to who wins the conference.So, yeah. Too bad you donât get to go to Los Angeles or Eugene anymore but I donât think itâs the doom and gloom the board is making it.
Greed is why you also went to the Pac 12. It was a payday.
Back to back ignorant post. One, youâre in a half-rate upstate NY town that is just Starkville with good academics. That said, I was raised in California and yes my family fought in the Confederate Army but also the US Side of the war. I am literally the biggest Pac 12 cheerleader East of the Mississippi. I am not an âSEC! SEC! SEC!â guy. I even have said I hate our fanbase. lol. So, no⌠you are conflating an argument because you just made some dumb statements above about football. That said, there is a reason 13 of the Top 25 recruiting ranked teams are in the SEC. They recruit Florida and the South. Now you have a foot in the south.
Nobody is trying to recruit Utica and Avoca, NY.
Also, Utah has been to the Rose already. Itâs time for the playoffs. There is a huge chance they are going to dominate in the Big XII and finally get that shot that didnât happen winning the P12.