Not sure what grief stage this is, but strangely, I feel liberated. Anyone else?

[SalUteopia]

I’m obviously feeling very sad and disappointed about yesterday’s loss, but I’m also feeling a bit  liberated. I feel like the weight of expectations has been lifted. There’s a still a lot to play for, but I’m feeling a lot “loose” about next week and the season in general. I will still hate every time we lose, but the tension won’t be same somehow. Anyone else feeling this way?

Go Utes!!!

[Kyler Marvin]

Tbh it feels like people expect us to be Alabama or other blue bloods who are expected to win every game every year. We don’t have the recruiting to be able to be dominant every year. Especially where teams like usc and ucla can pull a bunch of high caliber transfers to their program to patch up any weak spots they have.

It sucks that we aren’t able to keep up in recruiting but we usually over perform with what we have and have been extremely dominant the past few years in the pac12. The fact that we lost a road game to an undefeated ranked team is the end of the world shows how much we are able to accomplish.

I would have loved to go through conference play without a loss but no one has done that since it’s been the pac12.

I feel like ending with 9, 10 or even 8 wins is still good especially with how young we are but maybe I am just missing something

[Kyler Marvin]

I don’t mean to sound like we can’t win every game or control the conference, I just don’t think we should call for coaches to be fired or act like we are terrible for losing a tough road game even if we did a lot of things wrong.

[UteBacker]

Funny you said that, Kyler. I’ve told three people today to chill…we’re not Alabama. We can’t beat teams like Forida and UCLA playing average football. Besides that, anyone that knows anything about Pac12 football knows that running through it with no losses is next to impossible. Also, some of us see that this Utah team is good, but it’s not last year’s good. The Florida game adjusted my expectations…

[Tony (admin)]

I was never sure of where we were this season and last night seems to bring that a little more to light.  We are not the best in the Pac-12 like everyone, including the press, thought at the first of the season.  We’re a decent team, probably above middle of the pac.  That can improve of course. 

[ryynoo]

Oddly enough I felt the same.

[Calgradutedad]

I was thinking a bit last week about this. I didn’t feel like they were a playoff team. Since they went to the Rose Bowl last year I got that off my bucket list. I got to see my son play in the band at the game and march in the parade. I am coming to the game this week so I was hoping they would win and have college gameday here but it’s not that big of a deal to me.

The thing that eats at me about this game is I felt it was there for the taking in the first half. I thought they could wear their defense down with the run but they kept getting knocked off the field. They’re clearly missing Kuithe but injuries are a part of this.

What I really want to avoid is having SC/UCLA playing for title game in either of these two years before they go. The lazy narrative that they were too good for the PAC 10/12 will linger for years.

Even last year’s Utah team struggled at times on the road. OSU loss was brutal. Arizona took a while to be put away even though they were terrible. UCLA will struggle on the road too but they only have four road games and one was Colorado. The others are Oregon, Cal and ASU. Luckily the conference is not broken up into divisions so if Utah beats USC and Oregon they should make title game. Might even be able to get into title game with two losses if they beat the right teams.