The Wheels in Knute's Head Go Round and Round

by Knute Lombardi
September 9, 2005
Exlusive to TrueAggies.com/UStateAgs.com

I'M ALIIIIIVEEE!!!!

Football season is underway so now the Knutester has a reason to live again. Oh sure I have three kids and a wife and all that but c'mon, we're talking FOOTBALL here!

Quick NFL note: They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. The person who coined this phrase was obviously an Oakland Raiders fan. Chokeland brought in Randy Moss and Lamont Jordan and looked AWESOME on the first series. Then they went back to being Oakland . Turnovers, poor utilization of their new weapons and a grundle of penalties to go with a QB who, were I a Raider fan, would scare me as much as my team's QB, Jake Plummer.

Then there are the Pats. They lose both coordinators, their top defensive playmaker and Ted Johnson and still they looked pretty darn good. I wish some the love that everyone heaps on Peyton "I never met a big game I couldn't lose" Manning and Michael "Whadaya mean QB's are supposed to pass" Vick could be diverted to Tom Brady. All the guy does is make all the right plays and wins. He doesn't put up the gaudy numbers Manning does nor does he make the highlight plays that Vick does, but he just goes ahead and wins. Brady is a better QB than both of those clowns and the only other QB I put up there with him right now is Mr. Brett Favrarara.

And now back to the local college teams.

Not a bad opening Saturday all around. A few good games, a few stinkers but I was so happy to see football again I overlooked the stinkers. I want to try something new and handout "Knute Awards" each week. The twist here is that the category will change weekly and there is absolutely no value to winning a Knute Award.

This week's winners:

The " Beaten Like They Stole Something " Award: This goes to Boise State . Way to represent Broncos! Jared Zabransky, you just looked like Jared from the Subway ads on National TV, where are you going now? The answer sure ain't Disneyland , although getting back to playing against WAC defenses might feel like it. To me, that game just signified the yawning chasm between SEC football and everyone else. Boise will still likely run away with the WAC but all these mid-majors who have a good couple of years and then start chirping about hanging with the big boys (Are you listening Utah ? You beat NO ONE in the last 17 games) need to be careful what they wish for.

The " We Just Totally Disproved Knute's Opinion in the Paragraph Above " Award: This one goes to TCU. A personal thank you to the Horny Toads for knocking Oklahoma out of the National Title picture early so we don't have to watch the Sooners lay another egg in a Championship game again. Still, this only disproves my theory for one week and by Big Boys in the paragraph above, of course I meant the SEC.

The " Knute, You are a Complete Moron " Award: This also goes to TCU. Like a complete moron I declined to recall that they are now in the Mountain West Conference when I mentioned that Wyoming and maybe BYU would be the Utes only serious competition this year. Yah.well.I still stand by the aforementioned teams, just add TCU to the mix please. You can stop with the emails about TCU now.

The " That was Much Better Than I Expected " Award: The winner is Colorado State vs. Colorado . What if USU gets their act together and starts playing with and beating Utah on a regular basis? Suddenly, we Utards have our own version of a great rivalry. It looked like it might go that way for a few years under John L. Smith. Here's hoping it happens again and soon, not so much as a knock on Utah but as a beacon of hope for the Aggies. I expected a Colorado beat down of the Rams, instead I got a Rams beat down that turned into a great Colorado comeback AND former CSU QB Bradlee Van Puke acting like a 14 year old in the stands. Classic!

The " There Should Be a Congressional Investigation Into This " Award: Step right up USC. How is a college team this good? We could swap out the Trojans with the 49ers right now and the NFC West would get much better and the National Title picture would get far murkier.

The " Where Did That Truck Come From ?" Award: Notre Dame gets the nod. They put the hurt on Pitt and gave Domers everywhere a reason to hope for one more week. But have you seen the Irish Schedule? Charlie Weis would probably have been happier to get a menu of suicide options. "Hmmmm, why don't you give me.Death by Paper Cuts and Lemon Juice. Yah. That one sounds nice." Michigan , Michigan State, USC, Tennessee to name a few. Talk about death by schedule!

Those are the Knute Awards for this week, now on to THE OL' CRYSTAL BALL!!!!

USU @ Utah
They say a football team improves most between week one and week two. If that adage is true then by midnight Saturday, UNLV will know if they need to be worried about traveling to Logan or not when the Aggies play again 6 months from now. The Ags are on what resembles my exercise schedule; 6 weeks off, one week on, 2 weeks off. The only plus is that there is no game film for Utah to study. The big minus is that they are playing Utah . At Utah . I think the Aggies cover the spread but only because the Utes are looking ahead to the conference championship game against TCU next week. This one is closer than expected but still not that close.
Utah 45, USU 21

Eastern Illinois @ BYU
I've heard BYU stands for Breed 'em Young University but I think it stands for Bandwagon Yayhoo University . Did you see how people started streaming out of the Provo Temple .er.LaVell Edwards Stadium midway through the fourth quarter of that game? If that's the level of faith those folks have, how on earth do they stay active in the LDS church? There used to be a day when the believers would stream into the temple and know in the very fiber of their being, that the Cougs could beat those godless heathens on the opposite sideline. And if things got rough, the collective prayers sent heavenward would divert air traffic around Provo until after the game, which of course was won by divine intervention if not superior talent. Now? Remember how long it took the Isrealites to start drinking and grinding when Moses went up into Mount Sinai ? 13 seconds, that's how long (At least that's what that guy with the big hair and horse teeth on the PTL network said). That's about the faith-in-our-guys level right now in Provo . It's been a long hard fall for the Kewgs and no one feels a bit bad about it, but I'm telling you, I still think they will be better this year. Although it is fun watching Bishop Bronco on the sidelines and wondering when or if he's going to literally explode. The best was when BYU was down 2 scores, at the BC 33 and they punted. WHAT?! I thought he was going to bite Robert Anae's heart out right there on the sideline. He's going to need a mouthpiece to save his teeth from all the grinding. So this week they are playing Eastern Illinois High School on the University of Utah pad your schedule to success plan. No deep analysis (did you know the roots of that word are Anal: well.you know and Lysis: to pull from?) for this game needed folks.
BYU 41, EI-EI-O 13

That's all for this week folks, enjoy the first full weekend of College and NFL football and tune in next week right here for more Knute Knonsense!

As always, you can send comments or questions or vicious hatemail to Knute at knute@ustateags.com

Knute