A Great Time To Be A Cougar

Today is the day, my friends. Today is the beginning of the next chapter in BYU football history. I think the idea of two quarterbacks makes us all antsy, but at least you can be happy that you'll see both Riley and Jake in action today. Today we'll get a glimpse of the future. How is BYU going to fill in the TE gaps? Is Kariya going to be Oklahoma-game good on a consistent basis? Is Quezada really the next Unga, but with supersonic afterburners? Is our defense going to figure out how to shut down option quarterbacks?

Finally, the season is upon us and we will find out the answers to these questions. I wish I could be in Provo tonight to see the next generation of Cougars take the reins, in the presence, incidentally, of some of the greatest Cougar QBs from the past for the halftime reunion thing. I hear MacMahon is planning on finishing his degree, and eventually taking his place in the BYU hall of fame. How cool is that?

I really like the Huskies as people (how can you not root for Sark?), except for the handful that can't let go of "the Locker penalty" of 2008. So I can't really frame this as a good versus evil game, which is always nice as a self-righteous cougar fan. There has never been a team hungrier for a road win, and Locker is probably the best quarterback BYU will see this season. It's going to be a hard-fought game, but if BYU can come together fast and control Locker's running lanes, we'll be just fine. This is the great and terrible LaVell Edwards Stadium, after all. We don't let domesticated dogs like Huskies waltz in and push around apex predators like Cougars in our own mountains.



Now a bit on independence. I currently live in London. Do you know how I'll be watching the Washington game? Starting at midnight, I'll be frantically searching for an unreliable broadcast on Justintv or channelsurfing.net. I will spend 4 hours looking at a four-inch screen with pixels the size of watermelon seeds jostle around in a rough approximation of a football game. The whole game I will be anxious not just about the outcome, but at the possibility that at crucial moments the video will decide to buffer, or worse, cut out completely, requiring another 20 minutes for me to search for a new broadcast. I did this for all of BYU's games last year. Sadly, there were some that I actually missed altogether.

INDEPENDENCE IS THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO COUGAR NATION. I know that people are nervous about bowl tie-ins, scheduling, the BCS, conference championships, etc. But strip all that away for a while, and think about the reason for college football. It's about loving the game, supporting the team, the camaraderie of the Cougar collective, the deep and irrational emotional attachment to every season, game and play.



This is a screenshot of the Oklahoma-BYU game which I watched on BYUtv (of Clawson about to introduce Bradford to the fine turf of the fancy new stadium). You can watch it too, if you like, along with several other games. I also watched the BYU press conference (the "declaration of independence") as well as several other BYUtv productions, and my smile grew wider and wider until the corners of my mouth touched each other on the back of my head. It's beautiful.

You can also buy a subscription to every ESPN college football game online, so my bases are completely covered.

"Increasing exposure" is the understatement of the century. BYU is finally going to be a light on a hill (self-righteous enough for you?) as opposed to a hermit crab in its shell under a rock at the bottom of an ocean. Not one of the popular oceans, either. One of the lame ones like the South Atlantic. Any other good thing that comes from independence (like money, better match-ups, etc) is just gravy.

Go, my friends in the hallowed valley of the Cougars. Breathe that mountain air, feel the rumbling of the stands beneath your feet, scream your lungs out, and appreciate that it's a great time to be a cougar.

Also, get me a Steve Young autograph. Rise and Shout!