Reading the Comments on Utefans.net...

[ABYUFAN]

Sorry for the 2nd post, I'm on a site-to-mobile converter that only lets me write so much.

That would get the BCS monkey off our backs, AND the Utes off our backs for not matching theirs (now TWO!). Now, to be fair, I can't guarantee we'd have leapfrogged Boise, but the majority of College Sports Analysts I heard said they thought that'd have happened. So long answer to short question, yes, a 1-loss 2008 could easily be traded for losses to the U in two seasons whose worth had been measured and meted out long before kickoff.

I can't really argue with this. I personally believe we'd not have made the BCS with one bad loss and BSU with none... but we'll never know. So I guess we'll just have to disagree on that - which means we'll ultimately have to disagree on who had the "last laugh" I think Max has it.

[GolfDiveNCougs]

You know, ABYUFAN, that's more than fair. I appreciate you being a pacifier when it's clear I haven't been the most positive of posters this evening. You asked a very insightful question, and I just took the time to explore it in my quirky little pea-brain. As for who really has the last laugh, you're right, of course, Max proved in his final game he could do what it took to beat them. Through the lense of time, I'm sure Max's mark on the rivalry will simply be a matter of differing perspectives between the two camps. We'll remember 2 insta-classic gutsy wins in hotly contested games, and they'll remember a strong win on their way to an eventual #2 ranking (hey, at least '84 still trumps it, right??? ). From that light, forgetting the (albeit intriguing above-discussed hypothetical scenario), yeah, I like to think Max got his last laugh in too.

[GolfDiveNCougs]

And Italics, you are correct also, and I thank you for your candor. I DID need to chill out, take a step back and breathe a bit. This thread has actually been vary therapeutic for me, and I think I've figured out why, and more importantly, why I HAVE been so negative this evening.I mentioned the '05 Utah game in the other thread. It was VERY emotional for me. You see, it wasn't just my friends' final game, it was mine too. That was my final year as a student at BYU. I'd been at every game, cheering faithfully, during the worst years of BYU Football since a decade before I was born. A winning season, to me, I suppose, would have represented recompense, atonement even, for the hardships my team and I went through together. How perfectly it was coming together. A rebirth: a new coach, a new hope, a very real possibility of EIGHT WHOLE WINS! ...And a rivalry game that, on paper anyway, an opponent that our rival stood very little chance of winning. Yet I looked on in horror as we played down to them...

[Italics]

And Italics, you are correct also, and I thank you for your candor. I DID need to chill out, take a step back and breathe a bit. This thread has actually been vary therapeutic for me, and I think I've figured out why, and more importantly, why I HAVE been so negative this evening.I mentioned the '05 Utah game in the other thread. It was VERY emotional for me. You see, it wasn't just my friends' final game, it was mine too. That was my final year as a student at BYU. I'd been at every game, cheering faithfully, during the worst years of BYU Football since a decade before I was born. A winning season, to me, I suppose, would have represented recompense, atonement even, for the hardships my team and I went through together. How perfectly it was coming together. A rebirth: a new coach, a new hope, a very real possibility of EIGHT WHOLE WINS! ...And a rivalry game that, on paper anyway, an opponent that our rival stood very little chance of winning. Yet I looked on in horror as we played down to them...

Nowadays, we just play down to them 99/100ths of the game, and then play at our TRUE superior level on the last drive

[GolfDiveNCougs]

...only to watch us have to claw and scrape our way back, against that blasted second-string quarterback, running that second-rate team! I was on the FRONT ROW of the North Stands, and on that LAST PLAY, not 30 feet from Michael Reed's outstretched fingertips...and not 29 1/2 feet from the ball. There weren't a half-dozen people not wearing uniforms closer to that lifeless ball than I was. And there weren't a half dozen people ANYWHERE that took it harder than me. That moment: that game, that opposing team, that rivalry, encapsulated and sealed in my bruised heart every anger I then felt toward my team for not playing to their potential, ESPECIALLY against that opponent in following years. It was MINE!!! And not the rival, MY team had taken it away from me! ...for playing down...So each and every subsequent year, I got angrier and angrier at every rivalry game that went to the wire, when in each of those years we WERE, EASILY, the better team (YES, even last year!)...

[GolfDiveNCougs]

...So despite the fact that I was actually ECSTATIC over an AMAZING finish in fully THREE OUT OF FOUR YEARS, I realize now that I haven't acually been able to bring myself to be just plain ol' HAPPY for my team's success. My anger for what did and didn't happen on that fateful November 2007 afternoon (oh, I forgot the detail that the game was also ON MY BIRTHDAY!) wasn't warranted just because it was MY swansong. It didn't end anything except me yelling myself hoarse at the TV fron a thousand miles away, rather than from 30 feet. The team did IMMESURABLY better the next year, and just as well as THAT the following three. I guess this means I CAN still be disheartened that our team still needs critical pieces (be they emotional, structural, managerial or otherwise), and still be genuinely happy that the pieces we have, have taken us places we've never been before. Thanks all, for being my psychotherapist. I think I have forgiven '05. I hope I can be the fan who one day deserves '05 forgiving me. GO COUGS!

[SpiffCoug]

The last time BYU won 3 of 4 against Utah was 2001, 2000 and 1998.