Utah v Wazzu: Time For Football

Nov, 26 2011; Spokane, WA, USA; Washington State Cougars mascot Butch waves the school flag against the Oregon ducks during the second half at the Spokane Arena. The Ducks would go onto defeat the Cougars by a final score 92-75. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports

First up, what we thought was going to be a pretty terrible day, ended up being a pretty good one.

This was the statement from Travis Wilson’s doctor, Dr. David Patron:

"A preexisting condition was discovered after Travis Wilson underwent a CT scan to further evaluate the symptoms of a concussion,” Utah team doctor David Petron said in a statement. “The findings on the CT scan led to an evaluation with an angiogram, which showed what appears to be a previous injury to an intracranial artery.We do not believe it is life threatening and there is a possibility he could play football in the future if it remains stable. It will be further evaluated with follow-up testing in approximately three months."

So yes we’ve lost Travis for the year.  But the amazing story is, his condition isn’t life threatening, so whatever else, Travis will be ok.  And second, there is a chance he could play again.  Which if it happens would just be the best icing on the cake.

But that leads us to turn our attention to Wazzu…

Every Ute fan knows what is at stake now.  Utah must win out, this week against the Cougs and next week against Colorado if the Utes want to go bowling and avoid staying home for a second straight year.  Wazzu is looking to get to their own bowl game, setting up an interesting match up in Pullman.  Wazzu also opened some eyes by going into Tucson and beating an Arizona team that had been looking pretty good.

For the Utes it will be Adam Schulz backed up by Connor Manning if needed.  First the best thing for the long term health of this program would be to keep Mr. Manning’s redshirt.  Second, Adam’s play against Oregon left me cautiously optimistic about this week.  Oregon is a much better defense than Wazzu and if our receivers can hold onto some balls and our O-line give a similar performance to the one they had last week, well we will at least have an offense.  If the Utes combine that with the defense harassing Connor Haliday into some mistakes, I think you really have to like Utah’s chances.

Not to mention having Jake Murphy back is really really awesome.

So the team knows what needs to be done and it’s a doable task.

GO UTES.