Didn’t know several on this list.
Thank you for this post!
PS I always wonder how the estimated reading time is calculated.
For most people, about 7-10 minutes.
It takes Marines 45 minutes and a study card. 
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All right thinking Florida fans have respect for Utah. Great school, great athletics, passionate fan base in a very nice area of the country.
Btw, this tidbit…
Bonus fun fact: Utah’s quarterback in 2008, Brian Johnson, would eventually go on to be Florida’s offensive coordinator before jumping to the NFL in 2021.
He is remembered fondly by Gator fans. Great person and coach, but onwards and upward for him. However if he wants to come back, we would take him in a hot minute.
Here’s to a good game.
RR
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I knew Brian Johnson when he was here as a player. Really impressive young man.
He came to Utah when he was 17, backed up Alex Smith during the 2004 Fiesta Bowl year, then went on to be our QB during the 2008 Sugar Bowl year, part of both our BCS buster seasons.
My son’s friend watched the 2006 Florida national championship game at a party where Brian was predicting the Gators play calls with great accuracy, based on down & distance, field position, etc.
“It was surreal. It was like he was in Urban’s head and telling us what was going to happen”.
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Yeah, he is good. That does not surprise me at all.
RR
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I think most hardcore Ute fans remember this, but in our 2009 Sugar Bowl against Alabama, Brian Johnson was calling the plays, we were in a hurry-up from the kickoff and jumped on the Tide early and often.
It’s not abnormal for OCs to script the first 10 or 15 plays on offense, trying to get the opposing defense off balance, but what Brian was doing that night went way beyond following a script.
He’d earned it, we were undefeated, by that point it was kind of like we had 2 OCs. That was unforgettable.
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Schlacking is an interesting way to spell shellacking.
Good list!
Glad we dodged the O.J. bullet in retrospect.
It’s hard to imagine Kyle Whittingham and Suge Knight on the same team. Go read Suge Knight’s Wikipedia article to get a little more perspective on what kind of a person he is.
And, well, you know you’ve really made it to the big time when Alessandra Ambrosio is attending your games. It is cool that she’s repping the Utes in the photo, however.
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We in Florida agree. That guy has a bright future.
RR
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That’s the night my wife and the cats fell in love with the Utes. We wept.
I’ve posted this before; but I distinctly remember Barry Switzer saying -
words to the effect - “No disrespect for the Utes, but there’s not a starting player on the Utah squad making the Alabama bench…”
Anyway, that’s probably why we cried when they won.
Go UTES!!
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In my personal, about 55 years of Ute football memories, nothing ever exceeded the first half of that game.
That might be the pinnacle, but as a fan, I’m not ruling out this coming Thursday. 
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They couldn’t make the Alabama bench, but somehow a dozen of them made it into the NFL. 
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Weirdly, many of the dudes on that Alabama team couldn’t make today’s Alabama bench. I would love to do a depth chart comparison of Utes from that team to the past two seasons. The talent level of both schools seems to have gone through the roof.
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That was such an amazing thing to watch. He had the eye of the tiger more plainly than any other Ute QB I’ve ever seen. The Tide was back on their heels all game long, especially in the first quarter. Talk about starting off a game by hitting someone in the mouth!
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Yeah Bozo the Switzer and his comments still irk me to this day. He was such an idiot. I didn’t like him coaching my Cowboys, and he didn’t help himself with his Sugar Bowl comments.
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Yeah, that was a good thing but I wonder if OJ had come to Utah and had a couple of huge years, would that have changed the football trajectory for the U? Would we have become good much sooner?
That would have required different coaches than we had before Mac, with the possible exception of Wayne Howard. I doubt Giddings could have got us there.
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