Utah 34, Utah State 18

This week's game against Utah State was Utah's Homecoming Game. It was also the coldest/wettest/snowiest game that I have been to in a long time. The temperature on the field at the start of the game was only 39 degrees and it was raining quite hard - and wouldn't let up at all during the game. Although the announced attendance was almost 42,000 there was no way that there were more than 20,000 people there at any time during the game (and that is an extremely generous estimate). Utah played fairly well - or at least they played good enough to beat the Aggies.

Utah State is definitely better than they were last year (When Utah blanked them 48-0 in Logan). They just can't quite get over the hump and start winning games though. They've actually been relatively close in most of their games thus far (obviously the Oklahoma game excepting).

Although Brian Johnson played the whole game, he was mediocre at best. He struggled throwing the ball, but he did a really nice job handing it off (not like last week where he and the running back collided while trying to convert on a 4th and goal). Some of his passing woes could surely be attributable to the snow and conditions that they were playing in. By the end of the evening, there was almost 2 inches of snow on the grass at our apartment and a bit over an inch on our cars. Luckily, it has since warmed up.

There really isn't much to report on the game. Utah is still weak from all of their injuries. Their defense looked rather lax at times and their (supposedly awesome) receivers were still dropping balls. The good news is that there are certainly things that they will be working on in practice (I'm not sure why that's good news - it's 5 weeks into the season). They've got a tough game at a defenseless Louisville team this Friday - their first game on ESPN in a couple of years. Hopefully they won't screw up their only real time on national television too badly.

As Angie's husband Hyrum said, "This is the best sports weekend of the year." With the Rockies beating the Padres in 13 innings tonight for the National League wild card spot, Upsets galore yesterday in the NFL (more on that later) and something like 8 of the top 25 teams in NCAA football also losing, it was an exciting weekend.