50,000th Blog Visitor, Crows, and Utah Football
50,000th Blog Visitor
The blog had its 50,000th visitor on Sunday afternoon. He was from New Haven, Connecticut and visited the archives and in particular January 1, 2007. It has taken just over four and a half years to reach this level.
On a lesser note, the blog traffic was off last week. We had 123 visitors who looked at 174 unique pages.
I do appreciate all of you who stopped to visit the blog.
Crows
I think many of the regular readers of the blog know I live next to a park. Usually, this is an advantage in my mind because the park is dark and quite at night and on the weekends. Not having a neighbor directly opposite you on the other side of the fence is rather peaceful.
Ever since I moved in, crows, a large flock of crows, fly into the park in early May and seem to stay around until the end of June. Crows are loud, raucous birds that like nothing more than to make a great deal of noise in the early morning as the sun comes up.
This year, May was a quite month for me and I enjoyed the ability to sleep in on the weekends.
Sunday, the crows were back in the park; loud and noisy as ever. My plans for a nice long sleep evaporated. They weren’t out this morning so maybe this was a one-time aberrant visit to ruin my sleep.
Utah Football
Our Utes, our being the Princess and me, struggled to win a game against San Jose State University in San Jose, California. I stayed up to watch the game. I only saw the second half but that was enough for me. Our Utes managed to maintain their unbeaten string at 16 games, the longest of any major football playing school
Rather than write my own rant about my frustrations, I’ll post in two columns from the Salt Lake Tribune sports writers.
Utes need a lot of work
By Gordon Monson
Tribune Columnist
San Jose, Calif.
The biggest opponent and the stiffest challenge facing the Utah Utes on Saturday night was neither San Jose State, nor beating the Spartans.
It was letting loose their own wandering focus and betraying themselves.
The Utes surely suspected they were the better team long before the opening kickoff here, seeing that San Jose had been crushed the week before by USC ... what was it, 7 billion to nothing?
They had studied the film, they had seen the Trojans treat the Spartan defense like a drag strip, they had watched San Jose State take a 3-zip lead, and then give 56 points back.
That game was all Spartans ... for a quarter.
Thereafter, well ... the poor possum family crossed the road in front of a Peterbilt.
The Utes knew which end of that business they should be on. But should and would sometimes don't line up all nice and tidy.
They did not come together so well this time, Utah struggling to defeat San Jose, 24-14.
In the first half alone, the Utes fumbled twice, the second of which led to a Spartan touchdown. They suffered stalled drives, including one that gagged at the San Jose State 1-yard line. And they missed two long field goals.
More mistakes followed.
The greater opportunity for the Utes stood up like this: They were heading for the second bag of their preseason sked, having already rounded first by beating Utah State.
Along the way, Terrance Cain had to show what he could do in his first road game as a big-time college quarterback. It was part of the growing and training process that was leading him smack-dab toward a date with Oregon at Autzen Stadium next Saturday, when the preseason would slam into a brick wall and the play suddenly would have to be more polished, the offensive attack filled out.
Unlike Saturday night, when it coughed and sputtered.
The best way, naturally, to prepare for what comes next against a Pac-10 team was dialing in on the here and now against a listing bunch from the WAC.
That's exactly what Kyle Whittingham expected his team to do.
Still, the fact that the Utes had lost three of their four road openers under Whittingham, and now were moving ahead with an inexperienced quarterback, had to dance on the edges of his mind.
Early against the Spartans, Utah seemed to be arguing with itself as to how best to mix the run with the pass, and the result was less than impressive: the Utes scored just seven points.
Over that span, Cain threw for 139 yards, and ran for 39, but the offense's consistency blew.
Cain needed to throw the ball around enough to expand on his rudimentary showing against Utah State, when the JC transfer made the same read, throwing the same pass to the same receiver, over and over, again. He opened up a bit more against the Spartans.
His ongoing development is a major priority for the Utes, a point that must be addressed and stressed for this team to ever fill its measure.
The defense will be OK, although it was imperfect here. The rush attack is solid. The receivers are play-makers.
That leaves Cain to become what he can -- right away. If he is being fed milk and rice cereal, first, he'll have to step up to a full Hungry Man now. And, overall, it leaves Utah having to reduce its errors.
That's what these first two games were supposedly for: Preparing a team and a QB to find focus -- and themselves _ in the present, preparing themselves concurrently for oncoming better competition.
A full-course meal awaits.
GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com
Utes hold off stubborn Spartans
By Lya Wodraska
The Salt Lake Tribune
San Jose, Calif.
Utah's game against San Jose State Saturday should have been nothing more than a formality. Take a short plane flight, pick up a road win and move on to the bigger, badder teams looming on the schedule starting with the visit to Oregon next week.
San Jose State should have been like Utah State, another nice relatively easy win against a WAC opponent in which the 17th-ranked Utes' new quarterback had a chance to become more familiar with the offense in live situations, the defense could iron out those missed assignments and the first-year coordinators could become more comfortable in their roles.
Only the Spartans (0-2) didn't play along with that expected storyline Saturday, showing that while the WAC may have fallen behind the MWC in prestige and national awareness, its teams can still cause fits for BCS contenders including the Utes.
"Give credit to San Jose," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "They played hard. They had a great game plan going in."
The Utes (2-0) did indeed survive, beating the Spartans 24-14, but the game wasn't nearly as decisive as the final score indicated.
Sure, Oregon is next on the schedule as is a home date with Louisville and the conference schedule, but first the Utes must go home and figure out what went wrong Saturday before they can look ahead to those matchups.
'Suspect,' was the best way to describe the Utes' Saturday. Suspect in the way they played and suspect in regards to the outcome of the game for much of the night.
The same team that was whipped by USC 56-3 last week held the Utes scoreless for two quarters, a drought that wasn't broken until receiver Jereme Brooks scored on a 51-yard pass play with 13:44 remaining that finally gave the Utes a 14-7 lead.
In between that play and an impressive opening drive in which Terrance Cain led the Utes on a 77-yard scoring drive, the Utes virtually did everything wrong they possibly could. Cain, who found his receivers with strong, accurate passes and wisely tucked the ball and ran when necessary in that drive, got shakier and shakier as the game continued.
As he went, so too did the rest of the Utah team. Running back Matt Asiata's runs were dominant at first then diminished, Utah lost two fumbles and Utah's defenders committed several costly penalties. As a team, the Utes were penalized 11 times for 69 yards. Even the kicking game suffered as Ben Vroman, who made his first collegiate field goal against Utah State, failed on three attempts Saturday.
Trick plays backfired too as a pass play from Asiata and Cain on 4th-and-goal at the one-yard line failed with the ball soaring past Cain's outstretched fingers as he ran wide open in the right corner of the end zone.
"We did a lot of things not very effectively," Whittingham said. "Namely, we didn't play the deep ball very well. We turned the ball over twice in the first half. Our special teams was a big dropoff from last week. You name it, we have to work on it this week."
The Utes have two injuries to deal with now too. Asiata's night ended early with a shoulder injury and offensive lineman Caleb Schlauderaff started then was held out for precautionary reasons because of a knee injury. Both will be evaluated Sunday.
The only other thing that remained for the Utes to mess up was the ending. Luckily for them they didn't.
Cain settled down, finishing 18-of-31 for 248 yards, and the Utes made it 21-7 with a 15-yard run by Eddie Wide with 9:03 remaining, then held on to escape with their perfect record still intact. The question is, how intact is their confidence?
Certainly it has to be a little shaky after struggling against a team that hasn't beaten a ranked opponent since upsetting No. 9 TCU 27-24 in 2000.
Whittingham insisted earlier this week the game wouldn't be a 'trap' game because the Utes wouldn't allow it to be one. They'd be ready to play and give their best effort, he indicated.
If that indeed was the case and Saturday was a best effort, next week's game at Oregon suddenly looks much more challenging than it did last week when the Ducks were losing to Boise State and Utah was manhandling Utah State.
Maybe the Utes will get back to Salt Lake City, dissect the film and decide Saturday was just one of those weird nights when bizarre things happen.
Or maybe they'll get home and decide trap game or not, the Utes escaped and for a young team finding its identity, that is good enough regardless of what occurred, at least for this night.
"We could have played better, but we can't get frustrated," Cain said. "We need to stay poised."
Fatburger
Doug and I were talking over the long holiday weekend about a bunch of things like if there were any good films to see [Doug didn’t think there were any] or if Doug and the Movie Club had any thoughts the cartoon 9 [not his type of cartoon].
I said that we ought to get together for a run to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers sometime soon, at least before year end. Doug wasn’t interested in Tommy’s because he said the meal tended to stay with him all day long and into the night.
I always thought was one of the benefits and joys of eating a Tommy’s hamburger with cheese and chili on it.
Our conversation drifted off to other hamburger venues and we could both agree on Fatburger as place where we could both go and enjoy a meal there.
I decided to go to Fatburger last Tuesday for an early dinner. It was temporarily closed because of a transformer failure. They staff gave me a couple of discount coupons for future visits. I gave the crew from Southern California Edison time to fix the transformer and went back for a large Fatburger with cheese and everything else and Fat Fries for dinner. My receipt had a coupon for a free order of fries on my next trip there.
Perfectomundo.
Be well and stay happy.
The blog had its 50,000th visitor on Sunday afternoon. He was from New Haven, Connecticut and visited the archives and in particular January 1, 2007. It has taken just over four and a half years to reach this level.
On a lesser note, the blog traffic was off last week. We had 123 visitors who looked at 174 unique pages.
I do appreciate all of you who stopped to visit the blog.
Crows
I think many of the regular readers of the blog know I live next to a park. Usually, this is an advantage in my mind because the park is dark and quite at night and on the weekends. Not having a neighbor directly opposite you on the other side of the fence is rather peaceful.
Ever since I moved in, crows, a large flock of crows, fly into the park in early May and seem to stay around until the end of June. Crows are loud, raucous birds that like nothing more than to make a great deal of noise in the early morning as the sun comes up.
This year, May was a quite month for me and I enjoyed the ability to sleep in on the weekends.
Sunday, the crows were back in the park; loud and noisy as ever. My plans for a nice long sleep evaporated. They weren’t out this morning so maybe this was a one-time aberrant visit to ruin my sleep.
Utah Football
Our Utes, our being the Princess and me, struggled to win a game against San Jose State University in San Jose, California. I stayed up to watch the game. I only saw the second half but that was enough for me. Our Utes managed to maintain their unbeaten string at 16 games, the longest of any major football playing schoolRather than write my own rant about my frustrations, I’ll post in two columns from the Salt Lake Tribune sports writers.
Utes need a lot of work
By Gordon Monson
Tribune Columnist
San Jose, Calif.
The biggest opponent and the stiffest challenge facing the Utah Utes on Saturday night was neither San Jose State, nor beating the Spartans.
It was letting loose their own wandering focus and betraying themselves.
The Utes surely suspected they were the better team long before the opening kickoff here, seeing that San Jose had been crushed the week before by USC ... what was it, 7 billion to nothing?
They had studied the film, they had seen the Trojans treat the Spartan defense like a drag strip, they had watched San Jose State take a 3-zip lead, and then give 56 points back.
That game was all Spartans ... for a quarter.
Thereafter, well ... the poor possum family crossed the road in front of a Peterbilt.
The Utes knew which end of that business they should be on. But should and would sometimes don't line up all nice and tidy.
They did not come together so well this time, Utah struggling to defeat San Jose, 24-14.
In the first half alone, the Utes fumbled twice, the second of which led to a Spartan touchdown. They suffered stalled drives, including one that gagged at the San Jose State 1-yard line. And they missed two long field goals.
More mistakes followed.
The greater opportunity for the Utes stood up like this: They were heading for the second bag of their preseason sked, having already rounded first by beating Utah State.
Along the way, Terrance Cain had to show what he could do in his first road game as a big-time college quarterback. It was part of the growing and training process that was leading him smack-dab toward a date with Oregon at Autzen Stadium next Saturday, when the preseason would slam into a brick wall and the play suddenly would have to be more polished, the offensive attack filled out.
Unlike Saturday night, when it coughed and sputtered.
The best way, naturally, to prepare for what comes next against a Pac-10 team was dialing in on the here and now against a listing bunch from the WAC.
That's exactly what Kyle Whittingham expected his team to do.
Still, the fact that the Utes had lost three of their four road openers under Whittingham, and now were moving ahead with an inexperienced quarterback, had to dance on the edges of his mind.
Early against the Spartans, Utah seemed to be arguing with itself as to how best to mix the run with the pass, and the result was less than impressive: the Utes scored just seven points.
Over that span, Cain threw for 139 yards, and ran for 39, but the offense's consistency blew.
Cain needed to throw the ball around enough to expand on his rudimentary showing against Utah State, when the JC transfer made the same read, throwing the same pass to the same receiver, over and over, again. He opened up a bit more against the Spartans.
His ongoing development is a major priority for the Utes, a point that must be addressed and stressed for this team to ever fill its measure.
The defense will be OK, although it was imperfect here. The rush attack is solid. The receivers are play-makers.
That leaves Cain to become what he can -- right away. If he is being fed milk and rice cereal, first, he'll have to step up to a full Hungry Man now. And, overall, it leaves Utah having to reduce its errors.
That's what these first two games were supposedly for: Preparing a team and a QB to find focus -- and themselves _ in the present, preparing themselves concurrently for oncoming better competition.
A full-course meal awaits.
GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com
Utes hold off stubborn Spartans
By Lya Wodraska
The Salt Lake Tribune
San Jose, Calif.
Utah's game against San Jose State Saturday should have been nothing more than a formality. Take a short plane flight, pick up a road win and move on to the bigger, badder teams looming on the schedule starting with the visit to Oregon next week.
San Jose State should have been like Utah State, another nice relatively easy win against a WAC opponent in which the 17th-ranked Utes' new quarterback had a chance to become more familiar with the offense in live situations, the defense could iron out those missed assignments and the first-year coordinators could become more comfortable in their roles.
Only the Spartans (0-2) didn't play along with that expected storyline Saturday, showing that while the WAC may have fallen behind the MWC in prestige and national awareness, its teams can still cause fits for BCS contenders including the Utes.
"Give credit to San Jose," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "They played hard. They had a great game plan going in."
The Utes (2-0) did indeed survive, beating the Spartans 24-14, but the game wasn't nearly as decisive as the final score indicated.
Sure, Oregon is next on the schedule as is a home date with Louisville and the conference schedule, but first the Utes must go home and figure out what went wrong Saturday before they can look ahead to those matchups.
'Suspect,' was the best way to describe the Utes' Saturday. Suspect in the way they played and suspect in regards to the outcome of the game for much of the night.
The same team that was whipped by USC 56-3 last week held the Utes scoreless for two quarters, a drought that wasn't broken until receiver Jereme Brooks scored on a 51-yard pass play with 13:44 remaining that finally gave the Utes a 14-7 lead.
In between that play and an impressive opening drive in which Terrance Cain led the Utes on a 77-yard scoring drive, the Utes virtually did everything wrong they possibly could. Cain, who found his receivers with strong, accurate passes and wisely tucked the ball and ran when necessary in that drive, got shakier and shakier as the game continued.
As he went, so too did the rest of the Utah team. Running back Matt Asiata's runs were dominant at first then diminished, Utah lost two fumbles and Utah's defenders committed several costly penalties. As a team, the Utes were penalized 11 times for 69 yards. Even the kicking game suffered as Ben Vroman, who made his first collegiate field goal against Utah State, failed on three attempts Saturday.
Trick plays backfired too as a pass play from Asiata and Cain on 4th-and-goal at the one-yard line failed with the ball soaring past Cain's outstretched fingers as he ran wide open in the right corner of the end zone.
"We did a lot of things not very effectively," Whittingham said. "Namely, we didn't play the deep ball very well. We turned the ball over twice in the first half. Our special teams was a big dropoff from last week. You name it, we have to work on it this week."
The Utes have two injuries to deal with now too. Asiata's night ended early with a shoulder injury and offensive lineman Caleb Schlauderaff started then was held out for precautionary reasons because of a knee injury. Both will be evaluated Sunday.
The only other thing that remained for the Utes to mess up was the ending. Luckily for them they didn't.
Cain settled down, finishing 18-of-31 for 248 yards, and the Utes made it 21-7 with a 15-yard run by Eddie Wide with 9:03 remaining, then held on to escape with their perfect record still intact. The question is, how intact is their confidence?
Certainly it has to be a little shaky after struggling against a team that hasn't beaten a ranked opponent since upsetting No. 9 TCU 27-24 in 2000.
Whittingham insisted earlier this week the game wouldn't be a 'trap' game because the Utes wouldn't allow it to be one. They'd be ready to play and give their best effort, he indicated.
If that indeed was the case and Saturday was a best effort, next week's game at Oregon suddenly looks much more challenging than it did last week when the Ducks were losing to Boise State and Utah was manhandling Utah State.
Maybe the Utes will get back to Salt Lake City, dissect the film and decide Saturday was just one of those weird nights when bizarre things happen.
Or maybe they'll get home and decide trap game or not, the Utes escaped and for a young team finding its identity, that is good enough regardless of what occurred, at least for this night.
"We could have played better, but we can't get frustrated," Cain said. "We need to stay poised."
Fatburger
Doug and I were talking over the long holiday weekend about a bunch of things like if there were any good films to see [Doug didn’t think there were any] or if Doug and the Movie Club had any thoughts the cartoon 9 [not his type of cartoon].
I said that we ought to get together for a run to the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers sometime soon, at least before year end. Doug wasn’t interested in Tommy’s because he said the meal tended to stay with him all day long and into the night.
I always thought was one of the benefits and joys of eating a Tommy’s hamburger with cheese and chili on it.
Our conversation drifted off to other hamburger venues and we could both agree on Fatburger as place where we could both go and enjoy a meal there.
I decided to go to Fatburger last Tuesday for an early dinner. It was temporarily closed because of a transformer failure. They staff gave me a couple of discount coupons for future visits. I gave the crew from Southern California Edison time to fix the transformer and went back for a large Fatburger with cheese and everything else and Fat Fries for dinner. My receipt had a coupon for a free order of fries on my next trip there.
Perfectomundo.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 2:27 PM
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