Going Back To Utah For Gameday
This is an interesting weekend game trip. For the first time in 5 years, I, and a lot of other Beavers, will be in Salt Lake City, thanks to a combination of the Pac-12 schedule rotation, and the Covid pandemic that produced empty stadium games, excluding fans and most media from the only scheduled football game for Oregon State at Rice-Ecles since 2015, among others.
This after going to Salt Lake City for 7 consecutive years, 2011 thru 2017, between 3 games against the Utes, plus a visit to BYU, and layovers on the way to Boulder twice, and to Fort Collins. I got to know I-84 real well.
Rice-Ecles, and Salt Lake City, is one of the more scenic destinations in the conference. Access and egress historically are good. I'm looking forward to it. Or at least I was until the powers that be decided to raise the price of fuel ~$.75 a gallon in a week, just in time for the trip. (Side note, skyrocketing travel costs cost having a contingent of the OSUMB on hand in SLC for the first time ever.) Gotta love being in a truck-stop conference!
It will be a tough assignment for the Beavers, who haven't won at Rice-Ecles since the overtime toss at midnight from Sean Mannion to Brandin Cooks in 2013. Hard to believe its been more than 9 years since that "Oregon State! Fight! Fight! Fight!" moment (those of us who were there know what that was like).
Whether it will be easier or harder because of last year's Oregon State 42-34 Homecoming win over Utah in Reser, the only loss to a Pac-12 opponent the Utes suffered last season, remains to be seen. Not incidentally, Saturday at high noon in Salt Lake City will also be a Homecoming game, in case anyone doesn't think the Utes remember that. Even if the visit midmonth by the Trojans already had every one of the Utes' attention.
That Utah will be without their best receiving threat, TE Brant Kuithe, who caught the Ute's first touchdown against Oregon State last year moves the needle in the Beavers direction, or would if TE Luke Musgrave wasing also missing from the OSU lineup. Ideally, this game was the showcase that probably would have determined which one was going to be the All-Pacc-12 First Team TE, and which one was on the Second Team. Instead, the only winners in that matchup are in Orthopediacs.
Some turrmoil with the running back position, and how each team deals with it, probably will have more to do with the outcome.
Both teams are 3-1, with a key difference being the Oregon States' loss being in conference. Before the season, Beaver fans (and most others) felt 3-1 was probably the best case scenario going into October, given the tough September schedule. And OSU is only a play away from 2-2. Yet Beaver Nation is disappointed, given the Beavers are also perhaps a play away last week against USC from being unbeaten and ranked.
Utah fans are disappointed at being 3-1, and only ranked 12th, instead of solidly in the top 10, as the Utes have beaten everyone, including themselves (multiple self inflicted tactical error in the swamp are what produced Florida's win on opening weekend, not anything the Gators did), but also if anything, even more motivated than last year's misadventure in Reser already made them.
As such, the only ones overjoyed are the Pac-12 Network folks, who get this game instead of it showing up on Fox or ESPN, in one of the late late slots the Trojans and Ducks got as a reward (?) for their come from behind road wins last Saturday. Maybe if the Beavers can upset the Utes, which will probably require a late comeback of Mannion-Cooks magnitude, they will get a daylight game against the Cougs when they return home mid-month.
In any case, it should be another exciting Gameday! (There aren't any other kinds, are there?)
Go Beaves!
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com
(Photos by Andy Wooldridge)
Note: A disappointing change in policy to severely restrict photographers since the last trip means there unfortunately won't be any first person perspective photos in my game report.