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Congrats Travis and Tom
Nice!
SAN FRANCISCO – Quarterback Travis Wilson of UTAH, defensive end Kyle Kragen of CALIFORNIA and punter Tom Hackett of UTAH have been named offensive, defensive and special teams Pac-12 Players of the Week in football.
Thats 5 in 4 weeks
Well if we weren’t on anybody’s radar last year, I think the first 4 weeks this year puts us right smack in the bullseye.
GO UTES!!!!
Great news and well deserved!
What a time to be heading to both Corvallis (where my colleagues at OSU are ready to throw us a parade) as well as Eugene next week! I’m heading there with several others from the U for a conference. I could not be more ecstatic and proud to sport my Utah attire behind enemy and envious lines. Receiving texts from OSU fans throughout the game was priceless. I think their dislike for the Ducks rivals our dislike for another certain little squad to the south. Best football weekend in a LONG time. Go Utes!!
Wear red.
My girlfriend and I left Thursday night, stayed in Boise, and then went up through Portland to see some family before getting to Eugene Friday night. I thought our stay in Eugene was going to be uncomfortable after the front desk personnel at the Residence Inn we stayed at were all wearing Ducks gear, but they were courteous.
Friday night we went out to a local pub just to see what the night life was like. Definitely a school town, and doesn’t have a lot to offer as far as refinement. But we had fun anyway. My girlfriend wore her red dress… it was obvious that we weren’t from around those parts. 🙂
Saturday we started walking to the stadium about 2:30pm. We went to the tailgate lot and met my Uncle (a Ducks season ticket holder) and some additional family members. Everyone on the road to the lot was kind and courteous. I got stopped more times that I could count by Ducks fans welcoming us to Eugene and wishing us well. There were the expected shouted comments from afar by some idiots, but the good interactions far, far, far outweighed the bad the whole time we were there.
After the tailgate we went in and checked out their Field House. It’s on the inside of the gates for their stadium and they have drinks and food available. They lay down a rubber surface over the turf of their practice field and turn it into a game party. Kind of like what happens in the South Plaza before the game – band plays, cheerleaders are there, the whole nine yards. Again, great fans that were welcoming and were happy to talk and interact.
My Uncle gave me his seats – 15 yard line, south side of the stadium. Great view. Fans around us were wonderful. We were able to head up to the Club Level at halftime, and that was a lot of fun. Great lounge and area. We also went back up near the end of the game and watched a bit more surrounded by Duck fans that were having a hard time dealing with the loss – but gracious to us, for sure.
With about 2 minutes left in the game we went down and made our way to the visiting section. It was great to sing Utah man with the team! The visiting section was great and it felt good to see how well we traveled.
Speaking of how well we traveled – we really did. There was a LOT of Red everywhere and lots of Utah fans. The visiting section was completely full and there were spots of red throughout the entire crowd.
After the teams cleared the field, people made their way down onto the field. This is something Oregon has done for years. We met my Uncle and the rest of my family on the 50 yard line for some pictures before heading to a restaurant for some food and a nightcap.
Sunday morning we got up early to drive back. People were still warm and friendly, telling us we had a great game and we have a wonderful team. Very complimentary of Utah all the way around. A lot of them wished us well and told us to run the table and represent in the CFP.
All in all, a fantastic experience for my first regular season road trip! I never expected to have that be the victory it was, nor for it to be so sweet while in the visiting house. I’m so glad I went and will definitely be making it out for more road games in the future.
EDIT: I tried to link to some pictures on my FB page but that didn’t work out…
Nice story. Thanks for sharing that. I tried to see if we can embed facebook pics but they’re coded funky. Probably not going to hapen.
Soooo every regular season game you’ve traveled to we’ve blown out our opponents? You’d better start booking the rest of the away games my friend.
Sounds like a fun trip. Can’t wait to make it out to Eugene at some point. You picked a good year to do it. Lucky man.
Why am I not surprised you were a dick to our guests?
Two of my coworkers were in the NEZ in their Michigan garb. Said they were treated well, but some other Michigan fans were a little more rowdy than they were. There were some words exchanged and a little posturing between those Michigan fans and some in the NEZ.
That drum thing in the Michigan game was terrible. The next game was a big improvement.
Another interesting thing to note.
My girlfriend left her phone in the bathroom in the field house. We had given up on it when it wasn’t turned into guest services by the end of the game.
Just as a last ditch effort I called her phone while we were driving home on Sunday. Someone answered. It was an Oregon fan who had found it. They shipped it back to my girlfriend. I sent them a small rewardfor being so cool about it and taking the trouble to send it back. But… They didn’t have to do that.
Needless to say, I was grateful.
They took her phone back to Oregon or wherever they came from and didn’t turn it in to lost and found? That’s odd.
Well, we were in Oregon, so…
Apparently they turned it off to save battery, put it in their pocket, and forgot about it… Hey, it got sent back, I’m not going to complain too much.
I was brain dead when I typed that.
I had a great time as well, most fans were very polite. We stayed at Cascade Springs, nice long walk through a wildlife bike path type thing. Alot of I can’t believe you came out here to watch your team get beat in Autzen. I really wish I could run in to those guys. We went to a bar in Eugene was told to go F myself a couple of times by a couple girls and some other fans. Who then bought us shots. Lots of hand shaking, could not have been more surprised. I thought there crowd was quiet. I’m saying this before they started getting stomped.
No worries. My answer is I don’t think so. So much better than last year!
And also it seems like our receivers are catching better this year too.
Tevin Carter dropped one against Oregon.
That one would’ve gone for 6…
Carter also dropped one vs. Michigan. He was very upset with himself on both drops this season…
well, i guess i had been into my 14th beer. do you know approx what the time was when he dropped it?
It was late in the 2nd. He’d have jogged into the end zone.
We have to give Carter a little bit of a pass. When Carter stood up after making a tackle in the first quarter, and one of his fingers was going at a 45 degree angle from the rest of his fingers, I almost passed out. He ran of the field, they popped in back into place, and he was back on the field a few plays later.
I’m sure he’s tough as nails. I know he plays hard and does great things for us, but there’s a reason corners play defense and not WR and it’s not just Kyle. 😉 INTs are great and I know we’ve lost games over dropped ones (ASU last year), but I can’t come down hard on a guy doing his best. WRs on the other hand don’t get that pass. It’s what they do. Drops are lame from WRs and should be scrutinized
The dropped INT by Carter was an absolute rocket & I think he was half shocked that it went his way. I wouldn’t expect him to get that 9/10.
Williams had one that he missed. It was a diving interception, but missed nonetheless.
I’ll take the 3 TO’s we had in that game. We were +3 in the turnover margin in that game. =)
In the first week of operation Ute Hub produced some fairly mind boggling stats, in part thanks to many discussions over at UFN as to whether or not the site sucks and who is visiting and all that… Here are some stats for the first 7 days of the site’s existence.
Unique visitors: 26365 (max single day 7551)
Hits: 1878220 (max single day 398410)
Pages displayed: 211105 (max single day 52103)
I’m sure things will subside a bit with the bye, and lack of discussion in other sites, so I don’t expect this week to be crazy like that.
Let’s keep building and making the site better though your participation and my web geekiness. Invite some friends.
Thanks for all you do Tony!!!
You are welcome. Spread the word! GO UTES.
Btw. I love seeing recent posts with just a click of the mouse.
Btw. I love seeing recent posts with just a click of the mouse.
GREAT! Are you talking about the forum menu > recent posts, or the recent posts on the home page?
Probably the biggest hurdle that Utah coaches face when recruiting kids with other offers from big programs is the perception issue. USC, Oregon, UCLA and even sometimes the Arizona schools are seen as “cool” or “sexy” by recruits and their peers. It’s hard for a kid to brag about his Utah commitment when others are bragging about their commitment to a cooler program. I really think that the Oregon win was a game changer. Sure, we’ve had wins against Stanford and USC and UCLA but none of those carried the impact that the nationally televised Oregon blowout did.
I was a bit naive when Utah entered the PAC-12 thinking we’d see an immediate jump in commitments from highly recruited athletes. I failed to grasp how difficult it would be to convince kids to come to a program that they knew little about and didn’t have much of a reputation. Now Utah has made a statement and I think they have an opportunity to change how the up and coming athlete perceives the program. This is still going to be a slow process but that was a big step the program made on Saturday.
Agree! And that win was sexy and fun! RB throwing a touchdown? punt return fake for a TD? Hacket Punt 1st down run? All awesome plays! I can’t recall a game where I had trouble deciding on one great play! The entire game was a blast to watch! It’s exactly the kind of game that makes a youngster think “I wanna be part of THAT!”
on twitter after the win –
One of our Florida recruits: “More Florida Players Is Going To Commit To Utah Soon…Just Wait On It”
recruit Micah Croom from California: “College football in the state of Arizona is really taking an “L” tonight.” “Go Utes”
from San Clemente football: “Great offensive game plan by @CoachRoderick and the Utes. Sincere thanks to Coach Roderick for always believing in Travis and his abilities”
recruit Jay Griffin from Texas: “Started a group chat with the other Utah commits… We the future!!!”
Ex-UTE Tevita Finau on twitter: “I’m going to say it now, and I’ll say it till I’m dead,to all u recruits. Wanna play real defense, how it should be played. Come to the “U”.
We got a lot of love from our florids recruits and scheduled official visits from two more florida athletes right after the win. Davir Hamilton (Long Beach Poly) was posting pics in his Ute gear and gathering up all the twitter handles of the other Utah commits. There is a lot of hype for Utah right now and it will turn some recruits heads, especially when we keep winning.
Hamilton has been tweeting out major props for Utah for quite some time. Starting to think he was heading of marketing. Lots of love from some of the Florida guys as well.
This is the first line from a Rivals article about recruits visiting Oregon for the Utah game:
“In what could end up being the Ducks’ biggest recruiting weekend of the year, eight official visitors are scheduled to be in the stands, with an average star rating of a whopping 4.0.”
At least one is also being recruited by Utah.
The win was perfect for the BYE- coaches are going to be hitting the recruiting trail hard this week.
I watched the game with my pop and my kids. My 8 and 4 year old boys were loving it, running around high-fiving and tackling each other. My dad and I kept looking at each other in disbelief. Good times.
A good friend of mine is from, and currently lives, in Irvine. He grew up a huge ‘SC fan. Generally he has been pretty dismissive of the Utes, even when they beat ‘SC last year. After the Oregon game I got a text from him that read:
Wow. you guys are good at football.
Yep. The country is taking notice. Now the Utes just gotta keep it going. Teams that can sling it, like Cal (or Wash. St.) always make me nervous. But I think the Utes get that one. If they can handle Az. St. for the first time, they will be on the way to a huge game against the Trojans.
“We got a pretty good football team, though, I’ll tell you that.”
Both the Utes and Bye come into this week undefeated overall and in conference play. What are the keys to this matchup?
A few I can think of would include staying healthy, holding bye to no points, tightening up the kicking game, resting Wilson’s shoulder.
I hate bye weeks… longest two weeks of the year
Do they get the whole first week off practice? Think I read that somewhere.
Savoring a victory like Utah had against Oregon makes the bye easier.
I just hope that team does not sit and listen to how great they are for two weeks and lay an egg against Cal, they seem to have one of the better offenses in the league.
As long as we can avoid injuries against BYE….they’ve been known to play dirty. Still if we can remain healthy it should be a good tuneup for the Cal game.
A knowledgeable friend advises me to get the core content in front of the user as soon as possible. Thinking about that I like the recent posts page a lot because it varies greatly and shows the user that latest and greatest.
I’m thinking experimenting with a home page design which is perhaps a split of some type, with some fun homepage stuff (welcome, photos, etc) on one side and the recent posts down the other side.
Thoughts?
That way a user would be 1 click away from reading the most recent topics.
The way I use UteHub is to immediately click on Recent Posts anyway so you’d save me one click. I think it would be great. I also think that people who aren’t using the Recent Posts function might realize how convenient it is.
Yeah now that I have the “new” icons working recent posts is becoming my go-to page.
Hey Tony,
This isn’t a big deal but if it’s easy to do you might consider putting a “New Post” button on the Recent Posts page. As it currently is designed, I just click on Forums and use the drop down menu and click on New Post, but it would be a tiny bit simpler to have the button in view. It may encourage members to start new topics as a benefit.
Not a bad suggestion High Uintas.
Predict the 2019 Utah Football regular season record
Total Voters: 183
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