Gray

So in titling this post I had to pause and decide if I should use 'grey' or 'gray'.  For some reason I'm much more partial to 'grey' but the "traditional american spelling" is 'gray' so we'll stick with that.

So in (approximately) 10 days and 22 hrs BYU will host (presumably) nationally ranked Oregon State in BYU's annual homecoming game.  This is a special game because BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is a graduate and former assistant coach of Oregon St.  Also it will be the cougars first real test since barely loosing to Boise St. and the first of three huge and difficult games that make up the meat of BYU's schedule this year.

Finally, it is also the first time that BYU will not wear white, or blue as their primary color.  I'd like to say that BYU has been a uni-staple, but between 1999 and 2004 they went a little crazy with uniform ideas, but in 2005 settled back down into the tradition.  This month all that tradition gets a little tweaking with a (jumping on the bandwagon) black out.

In the uni-watching world we call this BFBS, and black for black's sake is generally frowned upon, as is grey for grey's sake, or pretty much using any color that isn't one of your team's official colors.  But I don't care, these uniforms are gonna rock.  Why? because I said so.  While this comes as a surprise, it's not quite as jaw-dropping since the idea was leaked back in April.

All this thought of BYU uniforms makes me want to compile an awesome database of their uniforms... but for now I'll leave you with the beautiful pictures of BFBS.

You're probably wondering why I called this post Gray, well it's because of this beauty.  That grey with the blue!  ohh it is soooo good!!! I LOVE IT!  if they did one thing right here, it's the use of grey.  boom.

Po-po-police-ece-ece

So today the BYU Police Beat intern from the Daily Universe must have gotten back from summer vacation because they just tweeted a million and two police beat lines, dating way back to last year even.  Anyhow, if you don't follow them on twitter do so (if you don't have twitter do so first, and follow me while you're at it) it's quite funny to hear about the mischievous deeds committed on BYU campus.  

Today though as I watched the many, many tweets roll in I began thinking... why do they have a police beat?  So many of them are so ridiculous, and stupid, and pointless.  I remember while I was a student making fun of the campus police due to the stupid calls they had to respond to.  Today however I began to see that it's not the police that are stupid, it's the people calling in these things that are the idiots, and perhaps the police beat is being published to let people know that not every suspicious looking person is a rapist.

If you think about it, there are kids attending BYU who have just come from very dangerous places.  People who grew up in inner cities and/or downtowns of pretty much any large city will have been close to murders, rapes, gang fights, and all sorts of cray stuff.  Coming directly to happy valley, you might not realize that those things only happen once every few years in Provo.  A lot of people are paranoid and worried about these horrible things happening to them, but the BYU police beat is there reminding students every week, that those kids hiding under windows are probably playing hide & seek.  Here are some tweets from today that I think might be a hint to those paranoid people that you don't have to call everything into campus police.

• There was a call reporting two suspicious people sleeping on a sidewalk. Officers arrived and discovered they were not sleeping and were not on the sidewalk. They were lying on the grass talking to each other.
• A middle-aged man was reported laying in the grass with his shirt off outside Helaman Halls. The man was not breaking any laws so officers let him be.
• A person was reported to be lurking in the shadows at 67th and Wymount at 12am. It was a lost parent of a tenant.
• A female tenant looked out her kitchen window and saw a guy dressed in dark clothing staring back at her. Officers were called to the scene, but couldn’t locate anyone matching the description.

It seems to me that the police beat (while containing some useful information) is used primarily to try to get less pointless calls made to campus police, and also to get people to lock up their bikes (maybe double lock, and maybe take the front tire into your house).

Ducks

Saturday morning we were camping near Provo with the Herds, and Saturday night we had dinner plans with some friends in Payson.  Naturally we didn't want to drive home so we decided to pass time hanging out at my Grandma Bu's house.  I hopped on the computer for a minute and on twitter I saw that BYUSA was holding a Ducky Derby that day.  What is a duck derby you ask... well, we didn't really know, but since we had nothing to do we decided to go.  

We arrived south of campus and began to under stand the meaning of Ducky Derby.  The stream that runs along the south edge of campus has been rehabilitated to be a beautiful walking path with rocks, waterfalls, and wonderful flora.

Also of course some wonderful fauna

So BYUSA was selling jDawgs and rubber ducks for eating and decorating.  People bought the ducks, drew on them, and then raced them down the river.  It was amazingly fun!!

Raphael and Polka

The racing was surprisingly exciting, everyone cheering on their ducks, getting excited as they passed others, and crying when they got stuck in a slow spot.  

placing the ducks

The Start 

Raphael in 1st pace...

eventual winner of our heat, The Cheat.

The Cheat, Polka, and The Missionary

Stephanie actually came in 2nd.  So we got a FREE Jamba Juice, and a chance to win again in the winners round at the end of the day for a BYU Bookstore gift card (and trophy)

Winner's Round

Movin' Groovin'

Real ducks getting in the way. 

Stephanie actually led the race in 1st place for most of it, then got stuck and fell to last place (about 14th)... but then came back to 5th place by the end.  Her duck must have been pretty stelar.

We then took our ducks back to the beginning of the stream and let them float along.  It took half an hour to do half of the stream... so we stopped there.

our ducks are amazing

nothing

I realized that I haven't posted anything for a while (almost a whole month!) and I feel like I don't have anything to post, which today, might be true.  Nothing important has happened to me today, but over the past month there have been a few random happenings that are somewhat noteworthy.

It's funny how we tend to focus so much on the here an now.  Many a person will say, "oh nothing's happening.." when really only two days ago they won the lottery.  After something is over I tend to forget about it.... if only excitement happened in retrospect.

So in lieu of some more interesting thoughts that swim in my mind, I will simply provide you with some pictures from some random happenings through the last months...

My car was paintballed!  Luckily our neighbor saw it, told us, and we wiped the paint of while it was still wet.  There might be a little bit of pink still in the grill though.

I quit working at Taco Time and subsequently stopped drinking 32 oz of soda everyday.  I'm always looking out for my health.

I worked for a handful of weeks at an industrial ceramics facility.  I worked with a mason who built/repaired kilns.  This is a picture of an arch (over the kiln door) that I made... woot.

 At one point in the month we took some BYU graduate family pictures... These may or may not be a surprise for my mother for an upcoming holiday.  I took this one and edit it a little for fun... (click on it for big size)

To come in a future post: my new desk, my new tv, and some thoughts on other things :P

life questions

So after a year of no job offers, I've decided to go back to school.  Well it's still in the deciding process, but we're pretty sure that it's the best thing to do.  As I've been working on my application to grad school I've come across some interesting questions, questions that have pierced me deep as I have pondered their meaning.

Part of the application is a letter of intent, the application says this about the statement of intent:

This statement gives the admissions committee an opportunity to learn the following:

1. your preparation and background for the program to which you are applying and the special emphasis you hope to pursue in it,
2. your academic or professional goals and reasons for your choice of career,
3. your particular academic or professional reasons for applying to Brigham Young University and the scholarly or professional contributions you expect to make to your program;
4. .....

Those middle few questions have really got me thinking.  What are my academic and professional goals?  What scholarly contributions will I make to the field of civil engineering?  I've been thinking for the past year that I want to do 'transportation' engineering, designing roadways and such.  But really, I never really thought of that before I ever went to college.  I never even thought of all that before I took a transportation class.  The real reason I switched to civil engineering was for structures.  

I think I speak for most engineers when I say that engineering is fun regardless of what it is your engineering.  Making awesome things is just always cool, whether it's buildings, roads, dams, engines, computers, waste water treatment plants.... it's just cool to build something intricate and amazing.


So I've applied to graduate school at BYU, and I'll hopefully bet going into structural engineering.  It will be strange going back to school, but hopefully I'll do a little better and care a little more, and it will probably be a lot of fun in the end.

BCS comps

So I like computers, and I like college football, and college football uses a lot of computers to determine rankings.  It logically follows that I would be very interested in these computers, which is why I have bookmarks to the sites for all six BCS-used computer ranking systems.

In looking ahead to tonights BYU game against TCU, I though I might go see what the computers thought might happen, so....

One computer (Massey Ratings) actually has links for 'predictions' and 'matchups' where you can enter in particular match-ups and see who would win, as well as see predictions for the upcoming games.  It says that TCU has a 78% chance of winning the game, and by a predicted score of 34 to 24.  Maybe not the best chance, but it's the same percentage that said Notre Dame should have beat USC last week, just sayin'. (btw Massey has TCU and BYU ranked 53, and 54)

Moving to more promising news, two computers have BYU ranked higher than TCU.  The Colley Matrix BYU 41, TCU 42 and the Anderson-Hester computer, BYU 41, TCU 45.  Close margins, I know, but still.  (Colley Matrix is 'unbiased' meaning high scores don't matter, and A-H prides themselves on being the best rater of what a team has accomplished to date, not a great predictor)

Then there's the other three computers that have TCU above BYU, but again, by pretty close margins. The Billingsley Report TCU 41, BYU 50, Peter Wolfe TCU 43, BYU 47 and finally the Sagarin Ratings TCU 46, BYU 55.  And finally there is a page on the Massey Ratings site that shows the ranking of teams based on the averages of all the computers (both BCS official and others), there TCU is 33, and BYU is 51.... not boding so well for the cougars in this one.

But really, computers can only take you so far.  They fail to truly predict the outcome of games though they come close.  From a more human perspective, neither team has won any super difficult games, TCU's 'best win' came over #51 SD[iego]SU, while BYU's is over #76 SJ[ose]SU (basically the same team, minus Ronnie Hillman). Their strength of schedule and records are actually pretty similar.  Both have lost to two good teams (ok, so Utah's not so great, but the were better before losing Wynn) and both teams have beaten up on inferior opponents to look good (Idaho St., New Mexico, Portland St.)

If I were a betting man, I might put a few dollars on TCU.  But it is a really, really close call.  I still believe that BYU can win this one, they are an improving team, and this will be the big test for them (since their next three games they will actually be favored to win).

And now it's only 7.5 hrs until kick off.  :-D  I'm excited.

The QB debate

So it's been a little over a week since BYU nation began the great QB debate, Jake Heaps or Riley Nelson.  It seems that a large portion of fans think Riley is a much better option than Jake, chanting his name at the Utah State game to get him put in the game.  It seemed quite obvious to me that Riley would start this game against San Jose State.

Really, the only thing Riley adds to the game is his ability to run.  He is just as inconsistent (if not more so) of a passer as Jake Heaps is, throwing two interceptions (almost three) this game.  His running ability though does do a lot for the game, giving the ability to pick up 5+ yards running when his receivers get covered and getting him to move the pocket and give more time for plays to develop and get open receivers.

I think though that the biggest difference is not in these stats, unlike baseball, football is much more of an emotional game.  Think of it this way, Heaps, the sophomore going deep to the freshman Apo.  On the other hand you have Nelson, the junior going deep to the senior Jacobsen.  leadership is everything and the players respect their elders.

I think Riley will continue to start our games.  I think Jake will get time to play in the 3rd and 4th quarters in the games against Idaho State and New Mexico State, (and maybe Idaho). And he will continue to improve and in the future Heaps will be the great BYU quarterback that has been expected of him.

The Holy War

You might have to em-biggen the video to see it well enough.

Basically I thought it was silly to hear BYU fans say, "We've won 3 of the last 5."
While Ute fans retorted, "We've won 6 of the last 9!"
And really, you can manipulate that statistic to serve your team anyway you want.
(BYU has won 26 of the last 39, including a 18 out of 20 stretch!)

So the only way to truly understand the game and the record of the teams is in a dynamic fashion, charting wins overtime.  I made this graph in Excel and animated it using Visual Basic.  I'll try to get the file uploaded somewhere somehow so you can download it and play with it yourself if you like.

For now, enjoy this upload.  It has some explanatory notations and I've included my analysis afterwards.

What do we learn from this?  

We learn that the series has been VERY close for the past 6 years.  

From 2002-2005 Utah took over (surprisingly the time  when Championship machine Urban Meyer took over and the Utes BCS-Busted the Fiesta Bowl).  

It was pretty even again for a while until the early 90's throughout the 80's and into the 70's (the height of BYU's program under Lavel Edwards) when BYU won 18 out of 20 ('72-'92).  

Ute fans will of course point to thier recent success saying they've won 6 of the past 9, but oh wait, not a single player on their team played for the 2005 team, so really they can only claim more recent history of which BYU has won 3 out of 5 (some BYU players have been on the team for all 3 wins).

So... It's close game, and an AWESOME rivalry.  I'm glad to see that The Holy War has even gotten some national media attention over the past few years, and I hope to never see an end to this great game.

This link should be an excel file, right click to download.

Remember to ENABLE MACROS to have the buttons work properly.

Also, sorry I was too lazy to make a 'reset' button.

Hand signs

So my last post got a little distracted with my slight obsession with those Nike gloves, so back to the point...

Hand signs are cool, not just as a "We just scored so throw your hands up!" way, but also in a passing on the street, simple way to show your team spirit.  However they aren't the easiest thing to have.  Ignoring the new glove-palm salutes, only five teams that I know of have hand signs.  So please, if there are other widespread hand signs let me know about them.

As I drove on the freeway in Salt Lake County (U of U territory) I passed a man with a BYU sticker on his car, and I wished that BYU had a hand sign that I could have flashed, letting him know that I too was a BYU fan.  Alas, the only think I could come up with was a sign language Y, but that's not a BYU tradition, so I didn't

Now, about those teams that do have signs:

Perhaps the most well known sign, Hook 'em Horns:

Then there's the growing in popularity Oregon O:

If I ever attended an Oregon game, I'd buy these.

TCU has it's "Horned Frog" although it looks nothing like a frog (or horns for that matter):

The University of Miami (FL) has their U shape:

probably my 3rd or 4th fav of the gloves

Some would argue that Utah also has one, but there's a debate about the U symbol...

And one I just found out about this past weekend, the ASU pitchfork:

And through my searching I came across of few less-well known others (the Houston Cougar Paw, the Villanova V?) but nobody really cares about those so we'll leave it at that.

Some are cool, others are weird, but hand signs (sadly) are not for every team.

slogans

It may well be known that I love BYU sports, and of all college sports, I love football the most.  Sitting in priesthood meeting on Sunday for some reason I felt inspired by the slogans/logos released by BYU in the past several years.  Not only are they football themed, but they are very gospel themed as well.  I collected some samples to show:

Fully invested:  

BYU use - be a fan that is fully invested in supporting the team, be a hard working, undistracted (fan/player/coach).

Gospel use - fully invest yourselves in preparing for salvation, don't casually read the scriptures or pray, but really mean everything you do and make it important.

The Quest (for perfection) - thats a little bit self explanatory for both uses.

Rise Up:
BYU use - Coming back from a less than perfect season, it is now time for the Cougars to rise up, and become a national power again.  (which I totally think they can/will)
Gospel use - "Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?" Psalms 94:16.  Also, from Hymn #324, 
"Rise up o men of God, tread where His feet have trod, as brothers of the Son of Man, Rise up o men of God."


Yes, I do think that Bronco has been doing his very best to influence this team spiritually as well as physically, and I agree that a team that is spiritually healthy will perform better physically (due to the fact that much of the game is mental, and spirituality helps mental focus).



Not to mention the constant reference to the original slogan (the one introduced the very first year Bronco was head coach) "Band of Brothers".  At first when I saw coaches and ball boys wearing that shirt at a recent practice I thought they just had some old stuff, but then I realized that its the same shirt that Bronco wears to half of the games:

And they have it front and center on all of their helmets:

 And this year they made a poster/desktop with the slogan

So, Rise up!  Be fully invested in the quest for eternal salvation through faith, repentance and baptism in the true church headed by Jesus Christ himself, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Graduation

April 22, 2011 aprox. 12:15 pm:

Stephanie and I graduated from Brigham Young University.  The weekend was filled with fun, family, and celebrations.  Both of our families were in town, a party was held for the graduates (including Erin), and we began the strange goodbyes to 'college life,' the only life we've know outside of home.

It really was an exciting weekend, but the full force of it didn't come until the next week when we slept in as long as we wanted, then did nothing all day except apply to jobs.  We now enter quite the strange unknown world of 'real life.'

The Facebook

Today I took an hour out of my schedule to go to the Marriott Center where there was a forum where about 10,000 students came to listen to Mark Zuckerberg and Orin Hatch.  Questions were submitted from students and they (mostly Mark) answered and talked about interesting topics in technology, education, entrepurnership, and government regulation.  The conversation seemed highly political, neither person wanting to say anything inappropriate to tarnish their reputation.

It was interesting to hear Mark speak about things such as dropping out of Harvard and making philatropical donations, and I found him to be rather personable.  He seemed real, and I think that's why he'd done such a great job with facebook and all, because he is real.

It was about six years ago in May that I sat around a lunch table with my 'friends' at Anacortes High School.  (Having just moved there my friends consisted of those in my classes, the AP calculus and physics nerds.)  One of my friends, who had just been accepted to Stanford asked us how many of us had already been accepted to a university, most of us had, and he told us that with our newly acquired university e-mail addresses we could join an online social site called "TheFacebook.com"  he said, "Go home today, go to thefacebook.com, and make a profile, then we can all be friends."  We created silly groups (The Citrus Horse) and had meaningless conversations which was about all facebook was good for back then.

That summer I joined into some BYU freshman groups and made a few friends, one of which actually ened up in my Freshman ward!  One of the few friends I have ever met 'digitally'.  Facebook of course became an important part of the 'freshman experience' for me, and it's existence changed my life in a small way, as it has for millions of other people.

I have begun to use facebook less and less, but not to say it's not important.  Just this morning I recieved a wedding invitation from a very dear friend, albeit one who I have little contact with these days.  And so facebook goes on, changing lives if ways big and small everyday.

in my head

I'm standing in the MARB waiting for a class, there are people all around, sitting on the ground mostly reading or texting.  There is also a girl who looks and sounds Russian talking on her phone, in Russian.  I begin to wonder what she is talking about, is she a spy, a terrorist, a scientist looking for high tech secrets, or perhaps passing info on the education system here back to top officials in Russia.  She is speaking quickly (at least it sounds fast to me) and seems a little stressed (or maybe distressed).  

Then her Russian is broken by something I recognize, 'Ma, Ma, Mama!...' and she continues complaining to her mother about how hard of a time she is having here at the beginning of the semester.  She's not a spy after all, she's just a normal student, having normal problems that her normal mother still doesn't understand.

and now you're older still....

I often have made fun of old people.  In my mind there are endless jests toward students who have children, and those who show obvious signs of having a wife watching over them.  I know several engineering students who often mention, my wife made me do this, I need to do that for my wife....  

Living my own life, making my own decisions, that is a symbol of my youth and independence.  Old people are made old by losing their independence, first by marriage, then by the baby in the baby carriage.  

So often have I scorned the student eating the sandwich his wife made, pulling it out of a plastic tupperware, along with a yogurt and spoon.  All carefully packaged with the care only a woman could possibly have for lunch.

......

Such were my thoughts today as I put my plastic tupperware back into my backpack and thought, I'M OLD!!!    though I don't wish anything else, since being married is so much better than single life, and the 'loss of independence' really isn't bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQd4tAQJT_M

I can't help...

I'm posting today about nothing in particular. I wish I had more time to do everything. Yeah I'm sitting on campus wasting the next ten minutes writing this post, but I really don't have much else I could be doing right now. Some things take large blocks of time, like structural analysis work for example. One problem takes me about 30 min to complete, and half of that is just understanding the question. Therefore for me to start working on my structures homework right now, I'd get started and in 20 minutes I'd have to go to class and then later tonight I'd practically be starting over again thinking about what the problem is asking me to solve and how to do it. I could study for my stats test, but pretty much this first chapter has been so super easy that I'm not sure what there is to study. Finding averages is something I think I learned in like 5th grade. And so I will continue to sit here.

As of late I've been spending an extraordinarily large amount of time with a certain person, Stephanie. Pretty much if I'm not in class or sleeping (or when she's in class or sleeping) we're together. Its nice to have a constant companion like that, not one of force, but one I've chosen myself. In fact, to be honest, she's my girlfriend, and having not dated much it doesn't mean much when I say that I've never enjoyed being with someone as much as I do her, but I still say it. An interesting thought I had the other day was about some advice from my dad. He doesn't give me advice everyday, but the things he tells me are often very precise, measured, and direct advice for struggles I'm facing (and they're often accompanied by a general conference talk or BYU devotional that deals with the same subject). His dating advice has come to me in chunks over the years, and one of the most memorable sparked not by a talk or experience of his own, but by an Adam Sandler movie, '50 First Dates.' He has told me the message of making your [significant other] fall in love with you everyday is one of the best he has ever seen in a movie. As I pondered on that thought I realized that giving Steph a reason to fall in love with me every day is not something I've worked at yet... but that's because it's come naturally. Again, the limited time (two weeks of dating) may present a less than adequate knowledge, but I feel pretty optimistic for the future.

Outcome: win

Now that the College Football season is officially over and all the bowl games have been played. It looks like out of nine bowls I predicted five of them correctly, that's above 50%, I can feel good about that. In my defense, had I know of Iowa's returning QB, I might have picked them and Oregon really could have beat OSU... the just didn't. But that's how the game rolls.

Today I read a post-season, pre-season poll. Now that it's all over Yahoo!'s rivals.com put together their top 25 for next season. I was quite offended to see Oregon State as #20, but no BYU. Huston as #21, but no Air Force. TCU and BSU ranked in the top six, amidst the National Champs and Rose Bowl teams, but those were about the only good choices made. Nebraska and Wisconson in the top 10?!? And whoever put Texas as #8 must have missed the part about the true freshman leading his team to 15 unanswered points and bringing the Longhorns within 3 of Alabama. He's got the whole offseason to bring his whole game up to competition level and I expect to see them go big.

Anyhow.... that is all I have to say on the subject of football for half a year now. Whatever happens, you can be sure that the BCS and the Big 6 as we know it are on their way out. :-D

We will rock you

So usually I write when I'm emotional, right now I'm emotional. BYU basketball just scored a HUGE win over UNLV 77-73, right here in the Marriott Center. I was in attendance with several friends, some of which decided they were tired and left early.... LAME. The game turned out to be one of the most intense games of basketball I have ever seen. UNLV is by and large our greatest rival/competition when it comes to basketball. Yeah, we'll still rise and shout against the Utes and bring out all our racist rival comments, but they're not much for competition. UNLV though is right up there with us (and New Mexico) in getting nationally ranked and playing with the big dogs. So tonight was a big deal (as it was also our conference-play opener). I just loved being there, jumping and throwing my hands up when Tavernari knocked down his 3s, screaming so loud and hearing the Marriott Center erupt as big plays were made. It was fun also to see Cecil O. Samuelson with his wife (who stayed the entire game) sitting on the front row across the court. It made me a fan again of BYU hoops ^_^

Guesses or Predictions

I was just looking around at some random stuff about College Football (which I love) and I found this picture. It is SI's pre-season edition, giving a rundown of top teams, bowl predictions, etc. I thought it was very interesting to compare the pre-season rankings to season ending rankings, and I thought I might include that here:

	SI's Prediction		Final Ranking
1	Florida		5
2	Texas		2
3	Oklahoma		NR
4	USC		NR
5	Virgina Tech		12
6	Ole Miss		NR
7	Oklahoma State		21
8	Alabama		1
9	Boise State		6
10	Ohio State		8
11	Oregon		7
12	Georgia Tech		9
13	LSU		13
14	Penn State		11
15	Georgia		NR
16	Florida State		NR
17	TCU		3
18	Oregon State		16
19	Utah		23
20	North Carolina		NR

All of this becomes even more interesting when you compare the opposite direction, what currently ranked teams weren't even on this preseason list (#14 through #25 all weren't included with the exception of Utah and Oklahoma State). And we can see that there was some significant shaking of the BCS, but not by the teams SI predicted (they had 4 covers released regionally for Oregon, Ole Miss, Oklahoma State and Penn State), of which only Oregon ended up in the top 10, but teams like TCU and Cincy.

Of course predictions are often wrong, and they couldn't see some random events like BYU's upset over Oklahoma or their loosing Sam Bradford (twice). From little things like 'Bama's two blocked kicks over LSU, to big ones like Stanford taking over the Pac-10 late in the season and USC falling to dust. Only time can truly tell the future, but I guess it is still fun to make guesses.

Speaking of which I will now offer my predictions on this years biggest bowls (for the BCS and MWC):
Championship:
. Alabama (Texas has been playing worse and getting lucky)
Tostitos Fiesta:
. TCU (Can't get through the D, can't stop the offense)
Rose Bowl:
. Oregon (their team synergy has only grown bigger since beating 6 ranked teams this season)
Allstate Sugar:
. Florida (got off their game, but I believe they can get back on it for Tebow's final hurrah)
FedEx Orange:
. Georgia (I really wanna pick Iowa, but they really lost their umph since QB Stanzi went out
Las Vegas:
. Brigham Young (Oregon State, seriously?)
Pointsettia:
. Utah (Cal's had a serious falling out this year)
Armed Forces:
. Huston (again, I'll be rooting for AFA, but being a non-AQ and being consistently ranked says alot)
New Mexico:
. Wyoming (why not? ;-)