Get to the games early, soak up the atmosphere, listen to the KSL pre-game, tailgate, baby. I wish my parents were even a little bit nuts about sports. They never took me to one Oregon football game when I was a kid growing up in Eugene, OR. Never went to a HS football game with me. My parents are great people. I love them tons. But, they are not avid, crazy, awesome BYU fans. They did not attend BYU, but made sure my brother, sister and I went there. I doubt they would travel to a game with us, even if BYU was playing UNLV at the Silver Bowl. (Dad hates the noise. I took him to a BYU/UNLV basketball game a few years ago and all he did was plug his ears like a cranky old man.)

When we have great things in our lives that bring our families together we should embrace them. For us, it's BYU football. (I'll admit that the Crowton years were tough post Staley/Doman, but we were still big fans.)

My wife won't be going up with me this weekend at the Virginia game. She has a family event that I could not attend . . . because of the game. I'll be going to the game with a close friend who often texts me during every game. He's awesome. We will be sharing our tickets with some people my comp and I taught and baptized three decades ago. As it happens, their granddaughter was at the game with their great granddaughter at the last game. Those are the kind of great moments I get to have because of BYU football. It brings the best of the best together. For that reason, I will always love it.

Some of the very best family pics we have are those taken near the field after the games. Love our family - especially when we are posing together in our BYU blue.

Count your blessings to have cool, dedicated, passionate parents who love BYU - name them one by one.

Go Cougars!