Meet
Summer Days
Posted by: Ben Hoeksel on August 19th, 2010
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.I’m getting tired of the Summer. This is the worst time of year for sports. Seriously. The frantic NBA trades around the time of the draft are over, rosters are essentially solidified with the exception of summer league longshots, and there’s no college football yet to get the sports year going.
Sure, locally RSL is decent to fill the empty sports hours, but it’s getting to that point where I want to watch the big dogs in action.
So with that little intro, I’m going to break down the new Jazz unis.
I’m going to be honest…I wanted just the note on the jersey. I do like it on the shorts, but I wanted it on the jersey. I’m wondering why the Jazz went back to the old logo with a new”ish” color scheme? Is it nostalgia? Is it what the fans were asking for? Marketing department wanted? I do overall like them, just preferred the note.
The other factor, is now we don’t have the green unis. I remember the first time we busted those out last season, I just thought they looked terrible. TERRIBLE! But man, as the season wore on and more fans at the ESA were sporting the green colored retros….they grew on me. Now I’m going to miss them.
I don’t think there’s ever been a bad Jazz jersey, although the purples with the mountains in the background kind of toe the line. I think at the time we were all so ready for a change, we were down with just about anything. But, when they went from the mountains, back to last years primary unis, that was….well, let’s say that was a good day.
I still am not sure if the new roadies are purple or navy blue. A little help?
So, let’s hear some opinions. You guys like em’?
Replies: 31
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31 Responses
I Love the Jerseys. I don’t see what you mean by the New jerseys not having the “J” note, it’s right on there. It’s a Dark Blue instead of Purple, which is much better. I too will miss the Green Jerseys, but we have much better home and away jerseys now.
I hate summer, sports wise. I’m not a baseball fan, RSL doesn’t really catch my attention. I don’t follow football. So basketball is my only sport I’m into. Can’t wait until the Season starts. Preseason will be good, but it will probably be the same as last year. Only 1 game will be televised… I didn’t like that, I want to watch every game, get me revved up for the season.
@Andrew
Thanks. Sorry, should’ve been more clear…I wanted JUST the note and nothing else. Just thought it would’ve looked cool.
As a follow up, did anyone else LOVE the black Jazz Unis with the text “Jazz” in Gold that they sold at Fanzz last year? I loved those.
Ben, you were clear about where the note was, and were it was. But also you really didn’t do a “break down” of the jeresy like you mentioned in your post.
NFL preseason is on right now. I think that makes August the best of the three summer months.
Ben, I feel your pain Bro. It’s obviously gotten so bad this summer, that you have become so desperate to talk about real sports, that you actually took the time to blog about the Jazz uniforms. And I have reached the point, that I am so overcome with boredom, that I am commenting your blog about uniforms. I am not real fond of the new uniforms but I do dig the old Black and Gold. The throw back Greens were unique.
lol…. Gerald and Preston..you called me on it. Terrible blog post about the unis. I admit, probably my worst effort. The non-Jazz season is killing us all, but most of all, my writing. Stick with me guys, I’ll get a good one up here soon.
@Adam NFL preseason is dece. It’s hard to take it seriously when the Bills just blew out the Colts. Shows how much of their true talent was on the field.
Admittedly I do enjoy soccer a little more than I let on, but make no mistake, the Jazz are the big show.
Yeah, pre-season is a joke. No team cares about winning or losing, they are just trying out their players and finalizing roster spots. I do get excited watching football, though, even if the games don’t matter and the backups are the ones playing most of the games.
Soccer and I don’t get along, though. I’ve tried several times. But when I sit there for 90 minutes and professional soccer players can only manage a few goals, I get way bored. Now I’ve come up with an idea that I think would make it more interesting, but I know will never get tried. Play without goalies. The teams would score a lot more.
Baseball is a little better, but not much. I can enjoy the last 2 or 3 inning in a baseball game, but sitting there for all 9 puts me to sleep. Too much standing around pitching strikes and balls. Too much defense. 90% of hits it seems get caught by the defense. Not enough base hits. Not enough runs and home runs. They do score more than soccer, so kudos there, but not enough to keep my interest. I enjoy watching the actual highlights more than the games.
Ben I am glad you are posting again!
I really like the new uniforms. I think whoever designed them did a fantastic job. I like that they are classic yet modern still. I like that the uniforms are unique. it is nice that we won’t look like the Mavs, the Nuggets and the Grizzlies anymore.
The summer months are definitely hard sports wise. I don’t follow other sports like I do the NBA. I like college football and basketball but not nearly as much as the Jazz. I’ll watch my team but not much else and I don’t read about it or follow it.
@Diana- we don’t look like the Mavs, Nuggets, and Grizzlies anymore, but our away Jerseys look an awful lot like the Lakers. Don’t know if Jazz fans would appreciate that comparison much. Check it out:
Jazz:
http://jazzfanatical.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/146904599-b9717e2c0af7d79317ea6b3c6956a126-4c69e618-scaled.jpg
Lakers:
http://www.nba.com/lakers/media/pau_gasol1024×768.jpg
Except for the fact the look NOTHING like the lakers uni! They are totally different. Purple and yellow – navy, green, and yellow and stripy? Um, yeah. Pretty much not the same.
I think it would be cool to have an alternate jersey with only a big J-note on the front. I’m betting NBA rules won’t allow you to NOT have the team name spelled out on your standard jersey though.
At least we don’t have to have ads on our jerseys, like the WNBA! That would be awful.
I’m not seeing how they look at all like the Lakers jerseys Adam. they have purple, no side stripe, no stripe around the arms, they have yellow numbers, we have white ones.
actually, I heard our jerseys were designed by the same people that made the Cavs throw-backs last season (aka Hardwood classics).
maybe fix the color on your monitor and check ‘em out again
PS: Joey – you used a double negative, if I’m going to be policing this site as a fan, I gotta call them all out.
PSS: just read Chusmer’s “navy, green, and yellow and stripy” – is stripy even a word? hahahahahaha!
Sticking up for my commenters:
@JC Stripy IS a word! If not, it should be. And double negatives are encouraged here. Well done Joey. However, JC, I think you have the best avatar on the site.
@Joey Oh man, ads on the jerseys would be so terrible. I watched a soccer game last night where I had no idea who the team was because their jerseys were just sponsers. I just decided to call them “that one team who pretends to be dead each time someone kicks their shins”
@Diana I do like the unis too. Don’t you wish those black and gold ones made it in the rotation though? Those were awesome…
@adam I see where you’re going. Avoid all things Laker. I’m with you there. But I think the new roadies are pretty in the clear there.
@Ben- I really liked the black and gold they were unique and I am all about unique. I am going to miss the green alternate uniforms. It’ll be nice when they can wear those again. Perhaps a modified version of it with just the Note?
too bad we’re not like the CAVS willing to pay hefty fines to wear a thousand uniforms. But I guess I’m glad our franchise is more fiscally responsible than that which has allowed us to be successful for 20+ years.
I’ve got to agree, summer (especially August) SUCKS for sports fans. I’ve found myself becoming less and less opinionated and interested in the goings in Jazz land, I’m just ready for some action! September does get a little better with the return of the NFL and the race to the playoffs in baseball. However, nothing compares to the excitement of Jazz basketball and I can not wait!
By the way, I actually think the new road jerseys look really nice.
I think football is in 1.65 weeks, yes?
Totally agree Ben. I’m ready for summer to be done.
Well, I realize they aren’t replicas of the Laker jerseys, thanks for those who pointed out the little details. That helped. In my defense, they are closer to the Laker jerseys than our old ones were to the Mavs, Nuggets, and Grizzlies. Let’s use some consistency here, folks.
I think NFL’s return in September is more exciting than the Jazz’s return in November. An 82 game season does lose my attention at times. I prefer NFL over NBA, but hey. Both are fun.
It seemed to me that the Jazz played a lot better in the green uniforms, like they were lucky or somthing
@Adam…yup. Love the Jazz but the NBA regular season is kind of a death march. The NFL and college football are the epitome of awesomeness because every game matters, and you have a whole week to build it up to the point where you’re literally frothing at the mouth when the weekend rolls around. I am about to spontaneously combust waiting for the Utes opener against Pitt on September 2 and the Saints opener against the Purple People Eaters the following Thursday. Good think I’m in a rubber room or I might hurt myself.
@James- I would say that I am as equally excited for the Cougars home opener, of which I still am. I can’t wait to see the Cougars face off against Jake Locker and the Huskies. However, it is almost killing me as I wait to see what the heck the Cougars are going to do as far as going independent or not. The WAC just got screwed. The MWC has now stolen their 3 best teams (you also have to feel bad for Utah State. They got offered to join the MWC, but declined because they thought everyone was staying together). Now BYU has to decide to either stay put in the MWC or go independent in football while joining Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, and the rest of the WCC in basketball and the rest of the sports. Both are quite intriguing options and BYU is just toying with me now. How dare them.
@Adam…we are kind of hijacking Ben’s post here but whatever, it’s the middle of the night. (By the way, good to see you posting again, Ben, keep it up). Anyway, this whole BYU-independent thing has definitely taken a turn for the bizarre. Interesting column on Friday on espn.com by Pat Forde (I think it was him) about how the MWC and WAC were once sort of brothers in arms fighting against the BCS establishment…and now they are literally cannibalizing one another. I honestly think that if the MWC could somehow get Houston, and keep BYU, you probably have a BCS-worthy conference even without Utah. Because by adding Fresno and Houston to Air Force, with Boise-TCU-BYU at the top, you might just have enough depth to make the argument. Especially if Colorado State could just pick themselves back up and be at that Air Force second-tier level. (I know Nevada was part of this too, but they’re garbage). If BYU goes independent, it’s certainly intriguing and bold, but I don’t think it’s ultimately a good football move (not when the MWC is a good conference). The issue is that if BYU loses a game early on and falls out of BCS contention, they really have nothing to play for. As things stand, every team begins the year trying to win the conference championship. That’s what you play for. You take that away, and I think it’s tough. Now, if BYU wants to do this because they feel they have a unique (religious) product and they want to separate themselves and do their own TV network thing, that’s fine. But if that happens, I don’t think it’s all about the money like some would say, and it’s certainly not all about football. It’s BYU, as a religious institution, saying they want to go it alone. And it would be interesting (if nothing else) to see how that works out.
Are you guys going with Nelson or Heaps?
And I’m not on the Locker bandwagon. The guy is like the anti-Tebow. Regardless of what you think about Tim Tebow, you can’t deny that the guy is a winner. He’s a leader of men. Jake Locker is, just going off his record as Washington’s quarterback, a loser. (By the way, you’re too young to remember this, but the best BYU team I ever saw was that 1996 freight train that went 14-1 with a win over A&M and a win over Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl; only loss was to Washington up in Seattle…whenever BYU plays the Huskies I always think about that and thank my lucky stars that UW prevailed or it could have been 1984 Part II and no fun for us Utes).
Well, I hope Ben doesn’t hurt us too bad. After all, he did say that this was a weird, random blog for him, anyways. He kinda opened the door for us to talk about the world of sports right now and this is the biggest story locally right now is BYU. It even made it onto ESPN quite a bit. Yay for local Utah stories going national! I think the best player in this story is the Mountain West. The recent update on ESPN.com right now is that it was pretty much a done deal with BYU and the WAC. They were even starting to work out their scheduling. Then the Mountain West goes and throws a wrench into that by taking away the Nevada and Fresno State. Now BYU can’t go to the WAC. Here’s the list of candidates to replace Boise State, Nevada, and Fresno State: Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, North Texas, Montana, Montana State, Sacramento State, Cal Poly, and UC Davis. Heck, they might as well invite Weber State. Weber has a good basketball program and a decent football team as compared to the teams in it’s conference. When your only option in replacing Boise State is Weber State caliber teams, it’s kinda sad and funny at the same time. I think BYU’s motives in this came from Utah going to the Pac-10. Utah now has the opportunity to play on the big stage and if they do well the rewards will be greater than they ever have been for Utah. After not getting to go to the Pac-10 with Utah, BYU is discussing it’s options on how it can jump up to Utah’s level again. I think they were looking at Notre Dame and seeing that that would be a great route to go, which would be good if they could pull it off, but I don’t think BYU is going to get the recognition and guarantees from the BCS that Notre Dame does, so I don’t think it would be the smoothest move for the Cougars. Now with all the fiasco going on in the Mountain West, I think you are right about them and I almost wonder if Utah wishes it could take back it’s decision knowing what they know now. Imagine if you had BYU, TCU, Boise State, Utah, Air Force, and Fresno State with a possibility of Houston? That would be a killer conference. And yes, it’s still good without Utah. The BCS people definitely have the Mountain West on their radar. If BYU leaves, that would be a big hit to the conference. Now playing basketball with Gonzaga and St. Mary’s every year would be great exposure to BYU’s basketball team, but NCAA is very football driven, not basketball driven. Now one thing about Nevada is that I’m glad that they are united with in-state rivals UNLV. Those two will have fun duking it out in the football basement and then go out and kick everyone’s trash in basketball.
Now as far as Nelson or Heaps goes, was that a what is BYU doing or who do I want? In response to the first question, Bronco hasn’t made up his mind yet, which is kinda dangerous in my eyes. He’s says a final decision may not be made until a few games in. Now as far as what I want, it’s a toss up. In terms of the present, I would like to see Riley out there playing because he has the experience and could give us instant wins. Heaps would go through some growing pains and I don’t know if he would do as well as Riley could this upcoming season. However, if we start Riley Nelson this year, he would also be our starter next year as well and that would throw away half of Heap’s college career. If Heaps is as good as advertised, then it would be amazing to have a solid 4 year quarterback that could be potentially dangerous by the time he gets to his senior season. So it’s a very mindboggling situation. If Heaps can redshirt this year or something like that and could guarantee us at three years after Nelson graduates, then I would go for that route because then he would gain the necessary experience so when his number is called, he could jump out of the gate running.
Now, I don’t know a whole lot about Locker, since I’ve been gone for a while. But everyone has him as the number one in next year’s draft from Mel Kiper Jr to college coaches to all mock draft creators, so I want to see what all the hype is about. And yes, I was to young to remember the 1996 season or at least to young to figure out what the heck was going on and what it all meant. I was 7.
Hijacked post!!! Hijacked post!!! Reporting to mods…….NOW!
Yeah, sorry guys, this was a pretty random blog entry. Now you’ve forced my hand, I must comment..
My thoughts on local CFB, then I’ll shut up and we can talk Jazz again:
1 – BYU should continue and go independent. BYU has just gone and (I’ll say) ticked off every team in the MWC. Love BYU or hate BYU, no one can deny they are the flagship of the conference. (Yes, it was debatable while Utah was in, now that they’ve moved on, there’s no debate). BYU has every right to be irritated by possibly the worst tv deal mankind has seen this side of Dee Snyder’s fam getting a reality show.
I rank the ideal scenarios in the following order:
– Get Beebe in a death lock and make him allow BYU into the Big 12.
– Stay in MWC in all sports, go indy in Football.
– Go indy in football, WCC in all other sports
– Go indy in football, play trainwreck WAC in other sports
– Stay in MWC
The thing everyone is forgetting, is BYU hasn’t said a word. Not one word. The only thing they have established, is they’re talking with ESPN. And who wouldn’t? ESPN is king. I’d talk to em’ too.
Before I shut up about that, I would like to add it’s no coincidence they’re playing Texas 3 times in the near future.
2 – Jake Heaps should start with Riley Nelson coming in for misdirection. I know it’s not a recipe for success, but there aren’t crazy expectations for this years team anyways. They’re young. In 2 years from now and 3 years from now, I think this core group has a chance to be one of the best in the country.
3 – I think the Utes are going to be really really good this year. I don’t think PITT will be a problem for them whatsoever. I think their biggest challenges will be TCU (obvious) and possibly BYU, depending on how the young guys play. That’s really about all there is to say with the Utes, since they’re pretty much set for life on conference affiliation.
@James thanks! happy to be back. Better blog post coming this week. I know, I’ve been slacking..
@adam what’s your tag on Twitter?
As excited as I am for CFB season, Jazz is king and I.. can’t…wait! Raja Bell, Al Jefferson, AK at the PF… this could be a very exciting year.
Only question left really is Big Fez!
Great thoughts on BYU, Ben. Now, I wouldn’t mind at all if BYU joined the Big 12. That would be like a competition against Utah. Both in different big name conferences. Who can do better? BYU can show that they can compete against Big 12 teams by beating Oklahoma last year. They’ll get to show their worth against Texas in 2011, 2013, and 2014. Maybe if they beat Texas, they’ll get the invite. Speaking of Big 10 and Big 12, they are confusing me right now. Big 12 has 10 teams and Big 10 has 12 teams. If the Big 12 adds two more teams, both conferences will have 12 teams. They really need to consider renaming to like the Big North and Big South, or something like that.
Now I think Utah will do good. However, looking at the AP Top 25 today and the Coaches Poll that came out a a week or so ago, I’m still confused as to why both Oregon State and Utah both get ranked higher than BYU (yes, Utah didn’t make the top 25 in the AP, but looking at the additional votes, they were at 28 while BYU was 34). Have people forgotten already that BYU slaughtered Oregon State in the bowl game and also beat Utah last season? I know BYU lost some players, but that happens to everyone. I know it makes BYU young, especially on offense, but as Bronco said, they aren’t rebuilding, they just have a lot of young talent. Jake Heaps was the highest recruited quarterback and they also have some killer running backs to replace Unga. They always are able to find tight ends and they have 6 freshman tight ends to replace George and Pitta.
Back to Utah real quick, they’ll do good this year, but what about next year? I hear some Ute fans that are talking National Champions because they are in the Pac 10, but I think they will struggle a bit for a few years. Pac 10 and the Mountain West are two totally different ballgames.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not a twitter guy. I just go on twitter to read the updates that professionals give on their twitters. It’s fun to read the sports players’ tweets. ESPN’s is very informative as well as ESPN analysts like Adam Schefter. However, my tag is alienator345 in twitter. Go to my profile there and I have my Facebook page listed. I’m a huge Facebook junkie.
@Adam…it’s not surprising that BYU is below Oregon State and Utah at this time because, as you said, they’ve lost players. BYU will have a new quarterback, running back, and essentially a new defensive line. While you may be totally right that they have talented guys to fill those spots, you can’t replace the value of game experience, so BYU may go through some growing pains this year. I’m sure they’ll still have a good season, but I think winning 10 games again (like they have the last four years) is a tall order.
Utah’s biggest question mark is replacing the safeties and linebackers. Joe Dale and Robert Johnson essentially started every game for three years, so there isn’t a lot of experience at safety, though Justin Taplin-Ross did get some burn last year. But linebacker is the spot that worries me. The Utes really need J.J. Williams to be ready for the Pitt game (he’s got an injured foot). Pitt has that nasty running back Dionne Lewis, but they’re also replacing four-fifths of the offensive line. I think it’s going to come down to whether Utah’s D-line (which should be extremely deep and talented) can exploit Pitt’s inexperience on the O-line. Utah’s front four is gonna have to bottle up the running game or at least eat up blockers to where the linebackers can quickly fill the holes. Because if Lewis gets through the line and is able to face our linebackers in space, we may be in some trouble. On the other side, the key matchup will be our new left tackle John Cullen trying to keep that monster Greg Romeus off Jordan Wynn’s back. Cullen is a JC transfer who got recruited by USC, LSU, and Oklahoma, so he should be the real deal, but he’s got no D-1 exeprience. If he can stand Romeus up, the Utah offense should be able to roll.
As for the Pac-10, you’re right Adam that it’s a different beast. I think Utah’s starters are good enough to compete. The issue is whether we’re deep enough. The best teams from those major conferences retool every year even when players graduate because they have so much young talent coming in. I do think that being in the Pac-10 will improve Utah’s recruiting ability over what they’re able to do now, so we’ll have a chance to build the depth that some of these other Pac-10 programs have. The other big question is going to be whether Utah can win on the road in the Pac-10. While the Utes have cleaned up at home and in bowl games against the Pac-10 and other BCS teams, the road is a different story. Utes won at Arizona in 2004 and at Michigan in 2008. And that’s it for recent history. Lost at A&M in ‘03, lost at North Carolina in ‘05, lost at UCLA in ‘06, lost at Oregon State in ‘07, lost at Oregon in ‘09. Can the Utes win big ones on the road? Because once you’re in a conference like that, it’s not like now when you just circle the Oregon game or circle the UCLA game and say, “That’s a big one this year.” It’s going to be a steady diet of those teams, week in and week out.
@James- Yeah, I do get the experience part. You’re right. That’s why they are ranked lower and I guess I’m not too surprised, but one thing that bothers me is the consistency. Both Florida and Texas lost big name quarterbacks (Tebow and McCoy) and a few other key players as well, including their star receiver for Texas. If BYU gets docked for losing Max Hall and Harvey Unga, why is it that Texas and Florida are both in the top 5 after the huge hits they took? Doesn’t make sense to me.
Now looking at it, a few points to make. First off, when John Beck left, everyone was saying that BYU wasn’t going to do well at first with Max Hall that first season. Yet Max Hall picked up right where John Beck left off and BYU didn’t miss a beat. That was also Harvey Unga’s first season with BYU and he looked like he was a senior runner in his freshman year. Now Max Hall wasn’t as good as John Beck, but he still played real good for BYU. Harvey Unga became BYU’s all time leading rusher after only three years. Imagine how unreachable Harvey Unga could’ve set that record if he would’ve been eligible to play his senior season. I kinda feel bad that he got put on the injured reserve already for the Bears. Bad year for him.
Now I want to look at our replacements real quick at running back. Our future at the position comes with freshman Joshua Quezada. This guy is an absolute animal at running back. Look at his profile page: http://www.byucougars.com/Profile.jsp?ID=8661 I can easily see him doing exactly what Harvey Unga did kick trash from the very beginning. However, if he does go through growing pains for the first little while, we have junior running back JJ Di Luigi to help out and tag team with him. Here’s Di Luigi’s profile page: http://www.byucougars.com/Profile.jsp?ID=3024 He played really good last season running side by side with Unga and has the necessary experience to make sure BYU doesn’t miss a beat at all at the running back position.
Now, as far as quarterbacks go, I’ll be short because I’ve already analyzed them. Jake Heaps was the top recruit out of all the quarterbacks and picked BYU over Oklahoma, Florida State, USC, Florida, UCLA, Georgia, Alabama, California, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Washington and LSU. I have no idea how BYU pulled that off, but I ain’t complaining. He could easily do what Max Hall did and jump out of the gate at full speed as a freshman. However, if he is a little slow, Riley Nelson is a very experienced quarterback that provides insurance for us so we won’t struggle. He was a star quarterback at Logan High School and won his school the 3A state championship for his team. His freshman year he started for Utah State. Utah State never has a good football team, but Nelson at least got the experience as a starter on the college level. After his mission, he decided to transfer over to BYU where he spent last season as Max Hall’s backup. In the few minutes he got, he played very well and was able to learn the system here at BYU. Now if he is our starter this year, he will have no problems playing good and won’t have any growing pains to get through. He’s already gone through that process.
So yeah, the college football experts who put the two polls together may predict BYU having a slightly tough season, but I think that they are overlooking a few things. I think BYU will surprise a lot people this year and play very well. As long as we have Bronco as our coach, I have no fears about our team. We’ll do good. We may have a lot of doubters, but that’s okay. Now I don’t think we’ll go undefeated and make a BCS bowl game this year, but 10 wins shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off. After this year, though, beware. Once our younger players get the experience, by the time they hit their senior season, they will be a very deadly team. I’m excited.
@Adam…BYU has definitely become a very consistent team under Mendenhall…but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that 10 wins shouldn’t be too difficult. That Washington game is gonna be tough, you have to play down in Tallahassee, and of course you have to go to Fort Worth (as well as coming up to Salt Lake City). If they do win 10, I think that’s a really good sign for you guys though. Last year was seen as a “rebuilding” year for the Utes and Utah still managed 10 wins. Now you guys are kind of in that boat. I’m definitely familiar with Heaps and Quezada. Heaps was part of that fabulous trio of LDS athletes the Cougars managed to land in the summer of ‘09. I’m thinking you were probably on your mission and missed the hoopla. They got commitments from Heaps, Apo the wideout from Texas, and Stout the linebacker from California. I think some folks were a little more surprised about Quezada. I don’t think he’s a Harvey Unga because he’s a different type of back (he’s a good 20 to 25 pounds lighter than Unga). But probably a little quicker. Anyway, so much of the “rebuilding” label gets thrown around when a team gets a new quarterback, but there’s really more to it. Again, you guys lost basically your whole defensive line. THAT is a concern. Like I said, similar worries for Utah because we’re breaking in new guys at the linebacker and safety spots. But our offense is stable. When you have major changes on both sides of the ball, like BYU does, it becomes a tough situation. But we’ll see. If the young guys grow up fast, y’all could have a fine season. One thing I’d say about Heaps and Nelson, having seen the Utes go with a true freshman in Jordan Wynn midway through last season…you guys are set up for the long term if you go with Heaps now and he becomes the player he’s supposed to be. The problem with saying that you’ll take two years from Nelson and get three from Heaps later (after he redshirts) is that when he finally takes over the starting job, he’s still gonna have to make up for that lack of game experience. I was skeptical about going with Wynn last year, but I’m so glad the Utes did it. Now they’ve got the guy as their leader for a full three years. Given the fact that you’re breaking in new players all over the team, I say you go with Heaps and deal with the growing pains, realizing it could have a much bigger payoff at the end of the day.
@Adam…oh yeah, I forgot about your point regarding Florida and Texas. This is what I was saying earlier about how these top programs are able to retool so quickly. Because they get such ridiculous recruits every year, they can lose top guys and just replace them with someone else. Not as easy for Utah and BYU when we’re brining in a lot of 2 and 3 star recruits. Those big dogs are absolutely loaded with 5 star kids. Not all of them pan out, and some of the overlooked guys that we get become stars, but in general that sheer talent can sort of make up for lack of experience when you’re looking at top of the line athletes at places like Florida and Texas. So that’s why I think they don’t drop as far in the polls.
Great points, James. I don’t think I really have anything to disagree with. I just hope this year becomes a repeat of 2007, because those same exact concerns were placed on us then we did great. We’ll see what Bronco can pull off. That’s one of the exciting things about college football as opposed to professional sports. In the NBA and NFL you can sometime get away with having an average coach and still play well if you have an all star player that stays with the team for 10-15 years. In college, no player is guaranteed for more than 4 years, you’re always shuffling players every year. That puts a lot more on the coach and Bronco has brought BYU football back after a short down period during the end of Lavell and the Crowton eras. And yeah, I do get the Florida and Texas point. They have great recruits every year. I just think 5-10 would’ve been a better spot for them instead of top 5.
Now, yeah, it’s going to be tough for us to play away games against TCU, Florida State, and Utah. While I’m not going to overlook Washington, you do have to admit that when your toughest home opponent is a team that went 5-7 the previous year, it’s ridiculously easy home stand. We should easily go undefeated at home. I’d put Washington into the second tier of opponents we play with Air Force and Nevada. I almost want to say Nevada will be the tougher home game because they did go 8-5 last season in football. Then we have the third tier opponents in Utah State, San Diego State, Wyoming, UNLV, Colorado State, and New Mexico. If we were to win every game against teams we should win (second and third tier teams), and lose all three games against TCU, Florida State, and Utah, that gives us a record of 9-3. All that 10-2 requires this season is a victory against 1 of those 3 teams. I think it’s more likely that we go 10-2 then 8-4 or 7-5. I agree with Bronco. We’re not rebuilding. We just have lots of young talent. We’ll see how are young guys do.