Sunday, November 23, 2008

12 & 0

yesterday was a sad day for the BYU cougars. we ended up losing to the university of utah (our biggest rivals), 48 - 24. and we were there for every ruthless second of the game.

first of all let me start out by sharing the obvious: brandon and i cheer for different teams. even though, lest we forget, HE WENT TO BYU. traitor. now that i have that out of my system, we can move on.

the in laws picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the game. they are all hardcore utah fans but i would not be intimidated -- i proudly wore my blue. here's the divided couple -- me doing my best cougar hand, and b making his dumb U:



maybe i was just naive, but having only been a true college football fan for oh, about the past 18 months, i had NO IDEA what it means to attend an away game as a fan of the visiting team -- let alone at the biggest rivalry game of the season. those ute fans are brutal! i figured i'd be okay, seeing as how i am married to a ute fan AND that i'm a nice girl, but found out pretty early that i was in for a long night.

we walked up to the stadium and passed some little girls out in front of their house, selling homemade cookies for $1 a bag. my MIL is all about supporting industrious youth (not to mention very aware of my cookie obsession), so we stopped to buy some treats.

we were sampling their wares and trying to decide which to get when all of the sudden, one of the girls froze and got a very grave look on her face. she looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said "there aren't any BYU FANS here, are there???" i said...uh...maybe. and she said "well, we don't give byu fans cookies!" so i said "well, fine, but i'm taking your picture and blogging about intolerant kids who withhold cookies from innocent bystanders." so here you go:



and guess what, little girl? your cookies were DRY. behold, the cookies of hatred:



from there we continued our walk to the stadium. as we approached, some very vocal (and very inebriated) ute fans noticed me walking and started making fun of byu fans, me in particular. i didn't feel much like talking back so i just walked quietly along while they yelled jeers at my back. they only stopped when brandon put his arm around me and said, "hey, she's married to a ute fan -- she's okay!" jerks.

stopped to take a family photo -- which one of these doesn't belong?:



and then it was time for the game! brandon, his younger brother jordan and i sat in the north end zone. i cheered when the cougars ran out and also (quietly) when the utes ran out. hey, i'm not a hater.



here's b and jordan watching their beloved team. they were very excited:



there was a lot of red in that stadium:



luckily for me we were sitting near some other byu fans. i was intimidated to cheer much after the people in the parking lot, but they helped me out. we even sang the fight song together :)



the game was pretty close there for a while -- it was definitely a good football game. then the cougars started to fall apart (with FIVE interceptions!!!! disgusting) and it was all downhill from there.

by the end, i could cheer for the utes. by winning this game, they had an undefeated season and are going to a BCS bowl, only the second time for this to happen in recent history.



of course, b was quite excited. he and jordan left early to rush the field, naturally, with about 6,000 other fans.



while he was down there, he got to bump chests (or slap butts or whatever it is boys do to each other when they're excited) with some of his favorite players. this was only exciting to me because of THIS picture -- here's a tiny piece of brandon's head with players ben vroman (middle) and louie sakoda (left). i LOVE louie sakoda. he is the ute's all-star kicker and has long been my favorite player -- he's always smiley and happy and he is the best kicker EVER.



it was a fun night and a great football game, that's for sure. poor cougars -- i bet max hall went home and cried himself to sleep. we randomly met his sister and dennis pitta's wife on our way out -- they were waiting for the team to come out so they could escort them to the bus without any crazy utes getting them -- and they were quite nice. poor little team.

final scoreboard: utes 48, byu 24.

8 comments:

Roxanne said...

You know I was waiting and you totally delivered. that was a well written blog. I remember rushing the field in 2001..what a beautiful sight- a bunch of blue. Luckily for me (despite my deep blue blood), my favorite color is red so red rushing the field looks pretty cool too. Don't worry, some of my brother in laws friends at church gave me a hard time for the loss...I quickly reminded them that it was about time the Utes won since they hadn't since 2004. Anyways, the rival goes on!

Emily said...

Looks like a fun time with everyone at the game! Way to support the Blue under opposition!

Jean said...

Aww, poor Cougars. I'm so glad you got to go, though!! Even if you were a little out of place, haha. :-) I'm a little peeved about those cookies of hatred. What the heck, children. What the heck.

Angela and Mike said...

Yes, you have finally gotten to experience being in an opposing teams stadium.

As a former byu bball players wife, I can say that there is nothing worse. The places I most hate in the world are the Utah State bball and UNLV bball arena. Hate them. People were so mean to me there. Oh yeah, and at U of U someone had a mean sign about ME that they held up. Lame.

Poor BYU. 5 interceptions? Yeah....

JoLee said...

Ha! That will teach you to root for the visitors. That cracks me up. Hope you guys are having a blast in Utah! Happy Turkey Day.

dana said...

Okay, LOVE the cookies of hatred. Seriously girls, calm down.
And um...were there ANY cougar fans out there??! (besides you). All I see is a sea of RED!

dietcokegrrl said...

I'm glad you guys got to go even if it was a blow out. Way to support your team!!

Sounds like you had fun despite the loss and the bitter children. :)

Jeff McMullin said...

Could it be that the little cookie girls were sly enough to over-cook and dry-out a batch of cookies in the event a BYU fan showed up to buy from them? They may be haters, but at least they are smart haters.

The worst is a hater who has no creativity whatsoever!I congradulate, but do not condone, the little girls on creative hating.