It has been stated (but not enough IMO), that last Friday’s win took mental toughness from the team. With 3:00 left in the 3rd quarter we seemed snake bitten. Everything that could work against us was working against us (our own errors, Houston’s play, lucky break bounces, officiating - which I think had a fair amount of errors that balanced out over the course of the game but seemed against us during that stretch - were all going the wrong way). ESPN’s predictor had them with an 88% chance of winning I think.

This is exactly the kind of game we have failed to find a way to win the last several years. But the team held it together mentally and came back.

With respect to Houston’s class I have seen a lot of talk about the spitting and the head butt. What I haven’t seen is that the Houston players were better than that for the most part. They ended up reciprocating the hand up to the opponent that our guys were doing. And toward the end I saw a funny incident where one of our LBs barely bumped into one of their WRs between plays. Their guy exaggeratedly threw himself back like he’d been hit hard. Our guy laughed and said something (probably about the high quality flop) and they both ended up laughing about it in a good natured way.

I don’t know much about Texas State but I am pumped I’ll be in the stands on Saturday. LES is my happy place. Following BYU and going to LES is what took me from not really knowing my dad well when I was 13, to having a very close relationship by the time I left on my mission.

Dad has been gone for over 25 years, but it feels like I’m going home to see him when I go to LES.