Monson: Promises fulfilled, Utes are on the edge of greatness
Promises about the renovation … no, the resuscitation … of Utah’s offense have been a long time coming. Season after season, coaches and players have pledged that new go would be installed in the Ute...
View ArticleMonson: Utah betrays itself in upset loss
The ball hung in the air, sailing over the head of Brian Allen, and landing in the hands of Darren Carrington in the absolute farthest possible corner of the southeast end zone. The refs ruled the...
View ArticleMonson: Utah's Pac-12 South title dreams undone by inability to beat the North
As Joe Williams reminded everyone in the aftermath of a heartbreaking loss, made that way by the width of a postage stamp, on Saturday afternoon, Utah has one more regular-season game to play at …...
View ArticleMonson: No ordinary Joe, Utah's Williams proves quitters sometimes do win
It’s one of the best stories of the year in all of college football, a singularly familiar one by now, maybe even on the verge of being taken for granted around here, but it amazes, nonetheless. This...
View ArticleMonson: Kalani Sitake and BYU sustain big hope moving forward (with video)
Provo Hope. That, more than anything, is what Kalani Sitake sold his team and his fan base in his first season as BYU’s head coach. He succeeded on both fronts, concluding that initial regular-season...
View ArticleMonson: Nobody knows how far, how high this Jazz team can go
The Jazz won another game, this one on Tuesday night against a hot Rockets team at Vivint Smart Home Arena by the count of 120-101. It was a home game for the Jazz, but coming on the second night of a...
View ArticleMonson: Flawed nature of 4-team College Football Playoff coming home to roost
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy [ride].” — Bette Davis, as Margo Channing Yeah, so, this ride is going to be good and bumpy, frustrating and chaotic — only because that’s the way it...
View ArticleMonson: A prayer sent up for Reno Mahe, for Elsie, and for beautiful little...
It’s too cruel. Too, too cruel. Sometimes life is hard. Too, too hard. Unimaginably, unbearably hard. When I heard that Reno Mahe’s 3-year-old daughter, Elsie, suffered a tragic accident, an accident...
View ArticleMonson: BYU, Utah now lost in an ocean of irrelevant bowls
A holiday wish for football teams and fans in the state of Utah is to again — one day, some day — play in a meaningful bowl game, a game of consequence that offers something beyond the contrived idea...
View ArticleMonson: When will the Fates ever smile on the Jazz? (with video)
OK, so this has blown straight past ridiculous, hurtling now toward preposterous. I mean, somebody’s playing a joke, right? Here, here, pull my finger … oh, no, no, don’t because … well, it’s broken....
View ArticleMonson: Utah Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey feels his players' -- and your -- pain
Despite the Jazz’s recent relative success on the court, injury anxiety has gripped many fans, and for obvious reasons. When an emerging team misses four of five starters in a game, when it routinely...
View ArticleMonson: NBA's 4- and 5-ref officiating experiment needs to die a quick death
It’s one of the dumbest basketball ideas ever. And yet, the NBA is experimenting with it in the D-is-for-dumb League. Let’s run up on it with a couple of questions: What is the worst part of the game,...
View ArticleMonson: Love is in the air for BYU's Kalani Sitake
San Diego Kalani Sitake, as it turns out, was right. He was right, he knew he was right, and now everybody else knows it, too. At the tail end of his first season as BYU’s head coach, preparing his...
View ArticleMonson: BYU wins, but it's hardly back in the quarterback business
San Diego There allegedly were various points of interest in Wednesday night’s Poinsettia Bowl, a game that, on a large scale, had no deep meaning for either participant. It was a postseason bowl and...
View ArticleMonson: A Utah Jazz Christmas quiz reveals something about you
Optimism for the Jazz this season is on a big sliding scale. It’s all over creation, like socks and shirts scattered around your kid’s room if a bomb went off in his laundry basket. One person’s good...
View ArticleMonson: Which coach in all of Utah sports had the best 2016?
Who did the best job of coaching among college and professional ranks in the state of Utah in 2016? Factoring in the rather subjective varying degrees of difficulty and assorted circumstances in each...
View ArticleMonson: Say goodbye to 2016 -- and hope for a better 2017
There are comely years and uncomely years in sports around here, and, plainly said, 2016 wasn’t much to look at. Even worse, it broke our hearts. It had some moments, it had some promise, but,...
View ArticleMonson: No longer a dark overlord, Kyle Whittingham seeks offensive...
Stop us if you’ve heard some of this before: • The Utes have hired a new offensive coordinator. • That new offensive coordinator says he’s been given full freedom to install the attack he wants, which...
View ArticleMonson: All-Stars? The Jazz have a few
Anybody who’s consistently watched the Jazz play this season knows the team has a couple of All-Stars on it. And that’s more than surprising, given that before the season started, nobody thought the...
View ArticleMonson: BYU's Dave Rose has become Bronco Mendenhall -- without the weirdness
Provo • Kalani Sitake and Dave Rose are two coaches darn near everybody likes, and not just because they win more than they lose. They are good mentors and affable men at different stages of their...
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