A look back and a look ahead...

Looking back...
Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium, in Salt Lake City. It poured. It came down hard, it came down early, and it kept pouring until the final gun sounded. That was of course the Utah intensity I speak of. The weather? yeah it rained the whole game too. The scoreboard showed a 63-28 final tally, and despite your assumption, it was not a case of a team trying to run it up on another. Utah's starting QB, Alex Smith, sat down halfway into the 3rd quarter and the Utes took their foot off the throttle. The soon to be retired coaching legend, John Robinson, was given a parting gift by the Utes, as they knelt on the ball when on the one yard line at the end of the game, rather than letting the 3rd string QB get a TD.

New polls are out and have placed the Utes at #9 & 10 in the coaches and media polls, and all the way up to #6 in the BCS. If they can stay there, they would be guaranteed an invitation to a BCS bowl.

Up next, San Diego St. on the road. An early preview says that 2-5 Aztecs won't be much of a challenge. However, looking deeper you see they 0nly lost by 3 this year at #12 Michigan, and only one team has scored more than 24 points on them this year (UCLA 33). I think the game could be Utah's closest this year, but that isn't saying much as Air Force's 14 point loss is the only time an opponent has stayed closer than 17 points to the Utes. Vegas has Utah a 16 1/2 favorite at this point. I don't have a prediction other than I do not believe Urban will allow these guys to overlook the Aztecs.

Red Sox winning a world series? Don't engrave the trophy yet. I am not convinced. I do think Schilling is amazing and worthy, but I think the Red Sox are almost in the position they are naturally accustomed to residing. That is the perfect place to choke. Choking isn't as good if you do it early and easy, but doing so when it looks like you should and could win, is what makes Boston special. The NY Mets won a world title after loosing the first two games to the Red Sox. I think a couple of games in St. Louis are just what the doctor ordered to get the Redbirds flying.

More mumbling later...