Before the season began, the second game on the Utah football schedule looked like the perfect home opener. Even if the Utes happened to lose to UCLA, the Division I-AA Northern Arizona Lumberjacks would be a great chance for the Utes to put up a lot of points by showcasing their offense and to get the fans pumped up for another great season of Ute football.
Besides traditional division rivalries in the AFC West, is there any reason these four teams exist in the same division? Yes, the Dolphins and Cowboys are geographically nowhere near their division rivals, but the AFC West has only two teams: the Chargers and the Raiders, who are within a scud-missile attack from each other.
The Pacific-10 is the premiere conference on the West Coast-and the only BCS conference east of the Rocky Mountains. Except for Boise State and Fresno State, the only other teams outside of the Pac-10 that appear on the national radar out west come from the Mountain West Conference.
The referees in stripes looked more like the convicts in stripes during last year's Super Bowl as they helped steal the Lombardi Trophy from the Seattle Seahawks so they could pawn it to the Pittsburgh-kind of Steeler. This season, the Seahawks will return to the playoffs and end a five-year drought for NFC champions.
The Colorado Rapids (10-10-5) captured the second annual Rocky Mountain Cup and took sole possession of fourth place in the Western Conference standings with 1-0 victory over rival Real Salt Lake (9-12-5) on Saturday. Several on-field and off-field incidents overshadowed Colorado's win and further soured the already volatile relationship between the two teams.
Real Salt Lake can stamp the words "mission accomplished" on part one of its most important homestand of the season. The standings won't show it, but RSL essentially captured six points by beating the L.A. Galaxy on Wednesday night as RSL distanced itself from L.
Real Salt Lake will look to rebound quickly from its most lopsided defeat in team history as the team returns home for the most important home stand this year. RSL's two home games this week will go a long way toward determining its playoff chances; it plays host to the L.
Most Ute fans become aware of their love affair with the U at a very young age, but it can be difficult to remember the exact moment. For some people, it might have been when Mike Anderson ran for a U football record 254 yards against Fresno State, or the U's back-to-back 34-31 victories over archrival BYU in 1993 and 1994.
Real Salt Lake will look to rebound quickly from its most lopsided defeat in team history as the team returns home for the most important home stand this year. RSL's two home games this week will go a long way toward determining its playoff chances; it plays host to the L.
For the past two weeks, it seemed as though Real Salt Lake could do no wrong on the soccer field. But on Saturday night, everything that could go wrong did go wrong as RSL saw its four-game winning streak and five-game unbeaten streak go down in flames in a 6-0 loss to the New York Red Bulls.
