BYU–alternately known as Boring You Unmercifully–arrives as a wooden and waxen opponent this weekend for Our Beloved Ducks, and no, we don’t want them around any more than you want your dimwitted Aunt Mildred sitting at your Thanksgiving table two months from now. Somehow, and there must be fowl play involved, these lugubrious oafs from Utah got added to our football schedule.
The drab, boringly blue BYU Cougars are on a mission, and as far as we’re concerned, they can stuff that mission where the sun don’t shine–back in their “Y”-emblazoned equipment bags. These putzes from Provo intend to hunt down our Ducks, clip their wings, and throw us into a bottomless well of misery, where not even the good doctor, Jack Daniels, can soothe us.
Yes, you can be boring and still be a menace, even if you’re an insufferable type of boring like BYU. Should you doubt me, turn on prime-time network TV, which is both insipid and boring, and you’ll be risking permanent damage to your frontal lobe.
Our Beloved Ducks Will Always Be First
Bona fide national championship games did not exist in 20th-century college football, primarily because the NCAA, university administrators, and media bigwigs could not come to any sensible conclusions, kind of like how kindergartners squabble and scream and cry over a Tonka truck in a sandbox.
In the 21st century, all the obstacles to a true championship game went away thanks to everyone’s true friend–money. Oregon won the very first college football playoff game, something that we’ll never tire of saying, and we competed in two national championship contests, unlike those witless nobodies from Seattle, the Washington Huskies, who have played in nil, zilch, zero title games.
Did we mention that the Ducks were victorious in the first-ever playoff game?
Oh, happy day. Ducks throttle Florida State in first ever college football playoff.
BYU–Not Just Blah, But Phony, Too
Meanwhile, BYU alumni will beat their sunken chests about their bogus championship from 1984–in the days long before iPhones, and google was a misspelling of googol, back when Velveeta was considered a delicacy (well, at least my Mom thought it was), and you were considered immensely cool if you owned a pair of Converse.
If you can remember 1984, and I’ve already forgotten what I had for lunch yesterday, the Detroit Tigers were World Series champions–yes, I’m being totally serious here, and “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” was a top-rated television show. (Sorry, if you just had coffee spray through your nose–we did warn you.) If you do recall “Scarecrow & Mrs. King,” you are either a.) Mr. King or b.) the Scarecrow.
In terms of football history, 1984 was the Dark Ages, when national championships were called “mythical,” because a natty wasn’t decided on the field but by the oft alcohol-infused ballots of sportswriters and coaches. Johnny Walker was responsible for more first-place trophies than we will ever know.
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This is not a BYU student. We are guessing that it is a sportswriter.
In 1984, BYU did not secure its “mythical” title on New Year’s Day in a prestigious bowl game like the one in Pasadena that those scuzzy Big Ten carpetbaggers USC and UCLA are in the process of ruining. No, BYU clinched No. 1 on December 21 at the Holiday Bowl–yes, the Holiday Bowl–with a seven-point squeaker over a pitiful six-win, five-loss Michigan team, coached by aging Brachiosaurus Bo Schembechler.
BYU fans, have you no shame?
A Forgettable Chat with Coach Kalani ‘Ambien’ Sitake
A couple of weeks ago, I surrendered 34 minutes of my otherwise wonderful life to watch a dreadfully dull and awful interview of BYU coach Kalani Sitake, because I wanted to learn something, anything, about his 2022 BYU football squad.
What I learned is that Sitake doesn’t say vulgar words like “gosh” or “shucks”–BYU is grossly offended by those filthy words–and he doesn’t seem to be a narcissistic sociopath like that coach from South Los Angeles at the University of Sociopathic Creeps. However, I believe that Sitake could be marketed by Pfizer as the once-and-for-all cure for insomnia.
Sitake said that he was “excited” about the offense and defense and special teams, except that he didn’t sound excited or look excited. He looked like you do when you’re at Applebee’s and you’ve just ordered chicken fried steak, and you hate chicken fried steak, but you couldn’t afford Ruth’s Chris, because it’s still nine days to payday.
And Now, Finally…Some Drama
Coach Sitake was sitting in front of a huge unlit fireplace, and I mean so huge that it might have actually been an incinerator, because there was an iron screen encasing it, and I kept waiting for this humongous thing to suddenly flame on, hoping to finally see some emotion on the coach’s face and wondering how fast he could fly out of his chair and run.
Can’t sleep? Just stare at this picture of Coach Sitake for five minutes.
You may think that this does not pass for analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the BYU football team, but October is National Fireplace Month, and you only have two weeks to get ready for it, so I will accept your begrudging thanks, you ingrate.
The How and Where of the ‘Y’
To underscore their utter and complete lack of imagination, residents of Utah call their home the Beehive State, inviting the well-deserved snickering of the other United States. The idea behind this hive business, we are told, is that Utahns are “industrious.”
Let us follow this storyline back to 1906 when some “industrious,” we say “insane,” BYU students trudged 1,074 feet up the mountainside behind campus to inscribe a giant BYU monogram for what purpose we cannot begin or pretend to fathom.
We presume that these BYU enrollees were either from an academically challenged fraternity like Delta Tau Chi in “Animal House,” or severely dyslexic, because they started the project with the letter “Y” and not the letter “B,” as logical, highly intelligent students would have done, like those from Oxford, MIT, or the University of Oregon.
BYU students tackle the question: “Does ‘Y’ come before ‘B’?”
This Project is Graded ‘I’ for Incomplete
Once the “Y” was 380 feet long and 130 feet wide, the kooky calligraphers declared it complete, whereupon we presume they congratulated themselves for not etching the letter upside down. At this proud juncture, one of the students must have inquired, “What letter comes next and where?”
We further surmise that no consensus could be reached among the inept scholars–maybe they were all on double-secret academic probation–and it’s a funny thing to suppose that this obtuse work gang could have struggled so mightily with their A-B-C’s. However, in the absence of agreement, the monogram was unfinished and remains so to this day.
The official ending of this tale has the daffy artisans complaining that sculpting the “Y” was…wait for it…too hard, and that the shiftless crew decided to throw in the proverbial trowel. At any rate–whichever version of the story you believe–the slackers abandoned the idea of a Mount BYU and settled for piddly “Y” Mountain.
This 116-year-old project remains two-thirds incomplete.
The Root of BYU Blandness and Blindness
If you want to really understand the hypocrisy of BYU, you need to know this story of the “Y.” Whenever you see that weirdly initialed “Y” on a BYU t-shirt, hoody, football helmet, or beer stein (good luck with that one), it’s a direct result of those BYU lollygaggers, who were only one-third committed to finishing their task, and we all know now that in the end, they chose to be “industrious” at being lazy.
So no, Provoans aren’t any more hard-working than protozoans. It turns out that the most boring aspect of BYU administrators, students, and alumni is their belief that they’re extra special, when in reality they’re no more special than you, me, or your poor delirious Aunt Mildred who smells like mothballs. All this hive talk is just jive talk, as fake as the 1984 BYU natty, as cold and empty as that fireplace behind Coach Sitake.
Of course, BYU sees none of this, but it is as clear to us as the skies over Autzen Stadium, where it never rains. We say, “Bring on the boring and the blue BYU!” And may the more flamboyant team win. Quack, quack!
Alan Lohner
Tigard, Oregon
Stadium photo on top is from BYU Athletics
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Alan Lohner is a native of Toledo, Ohio, where he served as a police officer from 1976-1980, before he moved West, graduating with a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Oregon in 1981. He’s enjoyed a long, successful career as a writer and creative director in advertising and marketing communications.
Alan takes delight in writing satire and spoofs for Ducks fans. He’s also written two self-help books; one is a highly acclaimed guide for teens and young adults, available as a free PDF to any member of the FishDuck community. Send a request to Alan, via message, in the OBD forum. For professional writing inquiries, you can contact Alan at alanlohner@gmail.com