my 15 year old son yelling "I'm so glad I'm a Mormon" followed by "I'm so glad I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!" after the game winning field goal.

We live in Texas and I'd been reluctant to take my kids to RES based on what I'd heard about the in-person experience. Well, now that both of my boys are teenagers and over 6 ft. I figured we should experience this for ourselves and I would have hated missing a W at their home stadium this season.

I went into the stadium sincerely wanting to leave feeling more positive about the Utah fanbase and was determined to treat their fans with respect and an open-mind. Unfortunately in just the 10 minute walk to our seats around the concourse of the stadium we received about 16 different "F-BYU", "F-Mormons", "F-Joseph Smith" along with some additional dialogue that some Ute Students (or at least student-aged) directed towards me and especially my sons.

Thankfully my boys almost seemed to get positively riled up by it and it all came to a sweet moment of retribution when they cheerfully (and perhaps somewhat obnoxiously) bore their witness to the sea of red surrounding us as the kick split the uprights. What a night!!

*to be fair, the Utes directly behind us were a classy family throughout the entire game. I did however see several full water-bottles thrown at our players and other personnel in blue immediately following the game. I know there are some good people that are also Ute fans (I know a few of them), I just can't imagine how embarrassed I would feel about the behavior of my fanbase, coaches and AD. It's so good to be a Cougar!