I have looked forward to today for a long time and I hate both South Carolina and NC State.  I really couldn’t care less who wins this game.  It’s the mere principal of it because it signifies the start of football season.  It gets even better for me this weekend.  I live in utah and I’ll get to watch Utah/Michigan, Byu/Crappy team and then Illinois/Missouri all on Saturday.  My wife is going to hate me but what am I supposed to do?  People are overlooking the Illinois game because it’s opening week but these teams are rivals and both in the top 20 in the country and they played a great game last year.  Both teams are better now and it will be a lot of fun.  Man, i hope BYU loses.  That just brings me strange joy for some reason.  In fact, here’s my list of my least favorite teams and to be considered on this list I have to get joy from that team losing as i do when one of my favorites actually wins.

5.  Duke Blue Devils-I hate them.  I love when they lose a basketball game so much.  When they get knocked out of the tournament I consider that a successful tournament.

4.  Dallas Cowboys-  I hate them.  I hated them growing up and I still hate them now.  Piece of crap Emmitt Smith breaking Payton’s record.  That still upsets me.

3.  New York Yankees-  I hate them.  They’ve made the playoffs my entire married life and Derek Jeter gets so much press it kills me.  If Jeter was a kansas City Royal nobody would know he existed and he’d only have 25 career homers because it’s more than 300 feet to the right field corner at Royals stadium.

2.  MIchigan Wolverines Basketball-  Oh man. In 1989 they beat Illinois in the final 4 and i haven’t forgiven them.  It’s harder and harder to hate them since they have sucked for 10 years but i still hate Rumeal Robinson, Glen Rice and especially Sean Higgins.

1.  BYU-  I hope the lose every football game they ever play.  I respect the university and all that it stands for but I honestly get so much joy when they lose i run around the house yelling like an idiot.  My wife hates it but I’m so excited that I can’t stop.

Sorry to go off there but I really hope Byu loses.  Either way, i’m excited to watch the game tonight and build up more excitement for the weekend.

BYU is a church owned school and have a very interesting and unique fan base.  They are owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints of which I am a proud member.  However, I am not a fan of BYU.  Not a fan at all.  I am surrounded by BYU fans who speak of past legends like Ty Detmer with a sort of reverance.  The true BYU fan, the one that drives me crazy, believes that God truly wants them to win.  This isn’t made up.  When Steve Young played for the 49ers the average BYU fan became a 49er fan and now God’s blessings needed and deserved to be poured upon the 49ers as a result.  It drives me crazy. 

The reason I preface it this way is because UCLA’s starting quarterback, Ben Olson, is a mormon who started out his career at BYU.  He came back from his 2 year mission and decided that he didn’t want to play there so he transferred to UCLA.  Olson was one of the top recruits in the history of BYU so this really hurt.  Football fans were furious at the kid for making the choice despite not knowing who he would be playing for as his head coach.  Gary Crowton was on his way out at the time and Olson was up in the air as to what would happen.  I would listen to radio show after radio show and they all went after this kid for doing the wrong thing and making a bad choice.

Yesterday I went scouring around the BYU message boards to look for material for my blog and it was easy to find.  The people who claim to be so forgiving and loving were making me sick with comments of happiness surrounding another person’s injury.  When i talk about wishing Emmitt Smith got hurt because I didn’t want him to break Walter Payton’s record I’m only joking about it.  These people were literally happy that Olson broke his foot and will miss a good portion of the season and potentially ruin a pro career in football.  To make it worse, Olson will miss the game against BYU at BYU this year.  One fan wrote: “It serves him right.”  Another wrote:  “In life we make good choices and bad choices.  Good things happen when we make good choices and bad things happen when we don’t”.  Another fan:  “I was hoping he would play against us so we could hurt him.” 

The BYU fan is a different breed.  Not all are like this but this type of fan has no place in college football.  I’m a Utah fan when they play BYU and this is exactly why.  I love BYU and what it stands for but when one person or group wishes bad on someone else especially based on a sporting event, it kind of makes me sick.

I never got into Fantasy Football until last season and I fell in love with it.  I’m still a rookie at it despite having played other fantasy sports for nearly 10 years now.  Football was so slow paced for me as I’m used to a basketball or baseball schedule so it took me a bit to adjust to the once a week games but I loved changing my roster 30 times a week leading up to sunday’s games.  I got hooked.

This year I’m in a few leagues which will be interesting because I’m sure I’ll have situations where I will have two players against each other and all sorts of issues but I’ll work them out.  Besides, is there anything better in fantasy sports than a draft.  Last year we tried to get together for smoothies and donuts early in the morning and it was fun.  The first round we had them turn in their pick on a piece of paper and had to me to announce.  Then one of our friends told us the story of not having any clean underwear so he was forced to go commando and to ‘reveal’ to us that he wore the wrong pants….the pants with holes in them.  It was priceless.

Fantasy sports brings people together and creates friendly competition and makes the games far more exciting.  I know in the not so distant future, touchdownskills.com will host their own fantasy league for their users and get into the action and excitement.  It’s time everyone to get your draft ready….get your draft party ready…take LT with the top pick this year and never ever ever draft a kicker.

I’ll include my comedic updates of the past four weeks today with daily updates as to what we have come to expect in the reporting of the Brett Favre comeback.

This morning…Brett Favre, it is being reported, had 2 eggs that were scrambled with a small cup of orange juice and a slab of bacon. It is expected that after breakfast Favre will get up from his table and walk to the couch where he’ll sit for a reported time of anywhere from 5-30 minutes depending on if he falls asleep or not.

Talk about the worst thing in pro sports.  I’m serious.  Pro Football preseason football is worse than choosing to watch a WNBA game. 

Yesterday the Hall of Fame game was played between the Colts and the Redskins.  I think teams shouldn’t even use their real names actually.  None of the good Colts really played and only some of the good Redskins played.  It was like watching a game of pickup football on a typical Thanksgiving afternoon.  The Redskins won 30-16 with the star being Colt Brennan from Hawaii.  Brennan threw for 2 touchdowns and looked really good playing against a shell of the Colts defense.

The funny thing is that the preseason is to be used to evaluate players and talent.  How?  Brennan didn’t play against anyone good or anything that he would see if the two teams played again during week 1.  Why even go through the motions.  I think the teams are better off taking 3-4 weeks to get ready for the season and just start playing.  We’ll have less injuries, more team fights and more build up for the first week.  The Preseason only takes away all of that for me. 

Recently teams only play the best skill position guys maybe one or two series a game because the risk isn’t worth it for either party.  Let’s talk through this…I’m Ladanian and i’m the best running back in the world.  I work for the Chargers on a non guaranteed contract.  I’m out there busting my butt during the preseason and get hurt.  Really hurt, like a torn ACL or blown achilles and i’m done for the season.  I’m not paid for preseason games at all so what is the point of me trying to get out there and play and risk my livelihood.  Same for the team that I play on.  The Chargers don’t want to risk injury in a game that doesn’t even count.

This is the most physical of the mainstream sports by far where injuries happen all the time.  Players careers average around 3 seasons as it is but we still try to throw them out there for an extra 4 preseason games for no reason.  Baseball is different because of the way the game is played and the guaranteed contracts.  Pro Basketball is the same. 

Players can earn spots on the team by how they perform in training camp like they did in high school and college.  For some reason the NFL thinks they need the preseason.  Sure people go watch the preseason football games but for me you need to scrap it all together.

I saw something newsworthy today and I want to write about it.  I’m sick of the Brett Favre saga that is all over everything though I keep watching it so it’s time to discuss something that I think is worthy.

The University of Oklahoma dismissed one of their top recruits after an 80 second Youtube video came out with the player using every obscenity and talking about killing people with guns.  The player had been in trouble at his high school before for carrying a gun and this video sealed the deal for the player.  Josh Jarboe was one of the top 10 wide receivers coming out of high school and now is going to be searching for a new place to get his education.  Not a smart choice for Josh as he’d been talked to by Coach Stoopes as far as what was expected of him and he chose the opposite. 

In college basketball, Jamar Smith was recently dismissed from the University of Illinois after he was found to be at a bar at 2:30 in the morning.  He violated a standard that had been set between he and his coach and that was it.  Illinois did the right thing and so did Oklahoma in this case.

This is starting to become a trend.  These kids will get chances at other schools as they should because we’ve all made mistakes and hopefully they will learn.  I’m just happy that schools are starting to take stands and not allow these kids to threaten a team and an entire program.