So it’s over. UCLA beat BYU today 27-17. The loss can be pinned on turnovers and penalties but the officiating seemed to play into both of those things as well.

BYU’s first turnover was the least controversial of the three. Max Hall tried to force a pass to Austin Collie and got picked off. The UCLA corner returned the interception for a touchdown. Ouch. The second turnover, a fumble, was highly questionable because it looked clear to me that the BYU tight end had a knee on the ground well before the ball came loose. In fact it looked to me like it was his knee hitting the ground that jarred the ball loose. The third turnover was equally suspicious with Max Hall losing the ball as he was being sacked. His arm was cocked back and moving forward just as the defender grabbed at the ball from behind him. The ball flew 5+ yards forward but the officials ruled it a fumble. Of course in both cases the reviews came down in favor of the Pac 10 team. (The Pac 10 is becoming well known for shoddy officiating (home cookin’?) and I can see why.)
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Blake Ostler has been a big influence on my thinking since I first ran into one of his papers in Dialogue. After that, I started doing searches in BYU library for all the articles I could find. I remember being very excited when I heard he was putting out his first book (which I devoured in one weekend). The chance to discuss his book with him here at the Thang is what got me into blogging.

So, I am happy to pass on his announcement that he has recently put up a website with links to his many works. My searches were clearly not exhaustive, and now I have some reading to do. Thanks Blake!

http://blakeostler.com/

Boyd K Packer is often maligned for his parable of the atonement he put for in his 1977 conference talk entitled the mediator.
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Well, I finally am moving on with a little bit more of Ostler, and I’ve stumbled into a problem.

You see, Ostler notes that original sin isn’t really as the rest of the world has conceived it. However, he does note that entrance into the world does submit us to genetic pre-conditions and the traditions of our fathers. This means we all do sin, based on these propensities built into us.
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So far so good with my pre-season predictions for BYU football. I predicted a BYU victory and that part was right. I predicted a final score of 16-9 so a 20-7 actual score wasn’t too far off. What I didn’t predict was that this was never a close game at all. BYU totally dominated Arizona on Saturday in ways the final score just doesn’t reveal. Here is what I saw on Saturday:

Defense

It was a dominating performance by the defense. The seven points given up came in the waning seconds of the game. The Cougs were just that close to pitching a shutout. The defense is living up to the hype so far. That is good news to Cougar fans and bad news to opposing teams.
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Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters get a lot of attention, but I find most people have not read much C.S. Lewis beyond that (if anything, the Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, maybe The Weight of Glory). Although I’m a big fan of his famous books like Screwtape Letters, most of my favorite Lewis comes from his shorter essays and lesser known stuff. Here are some snippets from the Letters of C.S. Lewis, a collection of some of his personal letters to fans and friends. I thought some of these might generate interesting discussion if people are inclined to discuss. I numbered them so you can refer to them more easily. (more…)

I was what you would call “musically sheltered” as a young child. My parents really weren’t huge music fans but they had their favorites. For instance, my dad loved Anne Murray and my mom was an Elvis fan, but we didn’t hear very much of his music because my dad thought Elvis was an idiot. They both loved the Carpenters and John Denver. When my dad was feeling really crazy we listened to groups like the Oakridge Boys. (more…)

Julie put up an interesting post over at T&S asking “Are Women More Spiritual Than Men?” This question has come up at several Mormon blogs recently and it has become pretty clear to me that before we can answer it we need to define the word “spiritual”. So what does spiritual mean to you? (more…)

There was a recent Sunstone Symposium session on how well Mormonism is represented by the Bloggernacle. I was brainstorming for empirical ways to test this.

Mainstream Mormonism is purportedly 88% Republican.
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Ok, I can tell that fans are itching to make their predictions about the upcoming season — they started putting them up prematurely in the 2007 Season Preview thread. So here is the place to make your predictions for the upcoming football season. Here are mine:

Sat, Sep 1 Arizona ……………………W — 16-9
Sat, Sep 8 at UCLA …………………..L — 17-24
Sat, Sep 15 at Tulsa …………………W — 31-10
Sat, Sep 22 Air Force ……………….W — 35-17
Sat, Sep 29 at New Mexico ……….W — 24-14
Sat, Oct 13 at UNLV …………………..W — 45-13
Sat, Oct 20 Eastern Washington W — 52-10
Sat, Oct 27 at San Diego State…. W — 38-17
Sat, Nov 3 Colorado State …………W — 27-24
Thu, Nov 8 TCU ……………………………L — 35-31
Sat, Nov 17 at Wyoming …………… W — 34-21
Sat, Nov 24 Utah………………………. W — 35-28

So there you have it. I’m going with 10-2 in the regular season. I figure 10-2 will likely at least tie BYU for 1st the conference and send them to another bowl game which I predict they will win to go 11-2 overall on the year just like last year. I optimistically predicted a 9-3 regular season in 2006 and the Cougs outdid me. I hope they do it again this year.

What are your predictions?

In 2005 and 2006 I covered BYU football over at Bloggernacle Times. But since that blog is now defunct, the Thang is launching a new sports category so I can keep my sports blogging hobby going.

2006 Season Recap

BYU started the 2006 season with high hopes but lost two of their first three games in heartbreaking fashion. (They lost at Arizona on a last second field goal and a Boston College in double overtime.) The Cougs then went on to rattle off 10 straight wins including beating top 20 TCU in Texas and crushing the Oregon Ducks in the Las Vegas Bowl. This Spring graduated senior quarterback John Beck was taken early in the second round of the NFL draft by the Dolphins and looks to be the QB of the future in Miami. Several other graduated Cougs are vying for permanent spots on other NFL teams now too.

2007 Outlook (more…)