Sam's Sports Reactions

I might have to start making this blog my sports blog because that's all I seem to talk about it anymore. Let's face it, sports are my life, and I can't wait to get paid to do this kind of stuff.
My favorite sport to watch and follow is college football. I don't like it because it supposedly has more emotion than professional football. I love it most because there are new teams every year and one team could be great one year and then suck the next year. Here is my top 10 and some of my observations compared to the BCS's top 10
BCS top 10:
1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Texas
4. TCU
5. Cincinnati
6. Boise State
7. Georgia Tech
8. LSU
9. Pittsburgh
10. Ohio State

My top 10 and observations
1. Texas: I put them #1 because to me they have never been in danger of an upset, and also performed great against quality opponents

2. Florida
3. Alabama
4. TCU: Okay Horned Forgs I put you ahead of my Boise State, but now there are so many TCU fans that think they are something special. Thinking they are the best team in the nation, and I'm not saying they can't beat a Florida, Alabama or Texas, but they need to get off their high horse. I truly believe and I said this even before last nights game that Utah is overrated. Utah had not beaten a quality opponent and already had some close calls. BYU is also overrated so TCU really only had one great win against Clemson in my opinion. Let's not forget they needed overtime to defeat Air Force. Every team has their weaknesses.

5. Boise State: I have them ranked ahead of Cincinnati, because they have been ahead of them most of the season but somehow was passed after Cincinnati barely avoided an upset to UConn. I'm not going to praise BSU cause they have their weaknesses like any other team, and I thought I would let you know what I think are some of their weaknesses.
1. Their inability to put opponents away in road games has worried me a little bit. They allowed Fresno State and Tulsa to come back into games that should have been not as close.
2. One way they let teams back into games is that "they allow a big play on defense" there have been many times that Boise State has allowed a big play while they were on defense. 3 60+ TD's against Fresno and 2 long passing plays that led to two touchdowns for Tulsa made games close.
3. Kyle Brotzman. I don't care how accurate you are... hit the freaking field goal from the left hash. This guy has a curse and I have not seen him make a field goal from the left hash yet, and sooner or later its going to cost Boise State a game like it did to TCU last year.

6. Cincinnati

7. Pittsburgh: I don't know why people don't have this team ranked higher. They've only lost one game and that was to NC State at the start of the season. Since then they have been dominate and will give Cincinnati a run for the Big East Title.

8. Georgia Tech: Clinched the ACC Coastal this week

9. LSU: Clearly the best two loss team in the nation. There only losses are to the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the nation

10. Ohio State

My dream college football system would be a 16 team playoff system with the conference winner getting an automatic bid and then taking 5 at-large bids. Re-rank each team and then have them play. I would explain when and where they would play if someone asked me, but if the college season ended today and we went by my system this is who I would have play in the opening round.

#1 Florida (SEC) vs. #16 Troy (Sun Belt)

#2 Alabama (At Large) vs. #15 Central Michigan (MAC)

#3 Texas (Big 12) vs. #14 Houston (CUSA)

#4 TCU (MWC) vs #13 Iowa (At Large)

#5 Cincinnati (Big East) vs. #12 Oklahoma State (At Large)

#6 Boise State (WAC) vs #11 Oregon (Pac-10)

#7 Georgia Tech (ACC) vs #10 Ohio State (Big Ten)

#8 LSU (At Large) vs #9 Pitt (At Large)

My Sports Weekend

Everyone knows that I love football, and football is what I spend the majority of my time watching over the weekends. After watching and reading articles about football from the three levels I have learned and like.

HIGH SCHOOL

I can't go into too much depth about high school football, because I only went to one game, but from the results of games I am excited to say that the Great Basin West conference has been an exciting year of football. The teams are not that good, heck, the #1 Twin Falls record is still only 4-4, but when I say it is exciting I mean that it is not written on paper.
First off Burley did what it had to do and they won the two most able to win games and luckily they got themselves into the playoffs. Jerome was second and beat every team except Twin Falls like you would expect. This is where it gets interesting. First Canyon Ridge beats Minico who just this last Friday beats the champion, Twin Falls, but then loses to Wood River. What does that say? Canyon Ridge, at the bottom of the conference beat a team that beat the champion, and if Twin Falls would have beaten Minico, and CRHS beat WRHS we would have had to have a three way playoff between Minico, Burley, and Canyon Ridge to see who gets the last two spots. Minico > Burley > CRHS > Minico. I love it! However, don't expect many teams to be represented in the state tournament. TFHS will beat Burley and will get one spot, but I'm thinking Jerome and Minico will not win their games this week.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

I learned many things.

1. The BCS is rigged: I don't agree with Iowa, who has had so many close calls and needed a last second touchdown to beat a 4-4 Michigan State team can jump over an undefeated Boise State and Cincinnati team that both beat their teams by 45 and 32 points respectively. How can LSU who's only loss is to the #1 ranked team in the nation be seeded lower than a USC team who's loss is to a 3-5 Washington team? If I got to vote in the top 10 it would be
#1 Texas
#2 Florida
#3 Alabama
#4 Boise State
#5 TCU
#6 Cincinnati
#7 Iowa
#8 LSU
#9 Oregon
#10 USC
Which brings me to my next point

2. Every team is vulnerable. After watching the Florida and Alabama games and seeing them struggle I can honestly think that Boise State or TCU could beat any team in the nation. I'm not saying they're the best in the nation. What I'm saying is that they deserve a shot at a national championship just as much as the next person.

3. BYU IS TERRIBLE. I used to be an avid BYU fan, but seeing them the past couple of years I have lost interest in them. They are one of the most overrated teams. For the past two years BYU has ridden on the coattails of one major vicotry (a 59-0 win over UCLA who finished the year with two wins in 2008 and a one point win over an Oklahoma team that isn't even in the top 25 anymore) After they won their second MWC title they thought they needed to focus more on national rankings than conference rankings, causing them to lose focus on TCU and Utah, getting blown out in the last three games. It sickens me to say that BYU is not good, but its true. They let SDSU score 28 or so points on them the week before, and besides that win at Oklahoma they really haven't accomplished much. So Cosmo, before you go ripping a paper that says TCU in front of national television, maybe you should go rip the depth chart of your defense, because it is terrible.

PROFESSIONAL

I don't follow pros nearly as much, but I just wanted to say that even though my 49ers lost today I wanna say that I'm proud of them. They showed me that they can come back from a deficit, and that they can score in bunches. After being down 21-0 to Houston they could have just thrown in the towel, but instead they brought the game back to 24-21 and actually had a chance to drive down the field and win the game, but just came up a little short. Alex Smith looked great today throwing three TD passes and only one INT which was on the second last play of the game.
I don't expect the niners to win the division, but I would love to see them go 9-7 and maybe even make the playoffs.

Well I know I probably bored all you non football fans to death, but I had to get my feelings out to someone. Hope you enjoy!

Boise State vs. BYU

You all know me and how I love to gab and gab about sports, well here I am again to plainly state my view on the two teams that have caused the most attention on my facebook. Being a fan of both teams I will make this sound as unbiased/most fair as I can make it.

Which team is better? Or more importantly which team will bust the BCS? After week three of the college football season its plain to see who's definitely got a better chance. That would be Boise State who is currently 3-0, ranked #8 in the nation, and to me only has two tough games that are stopping them from an undefeated season. That would be @ Tulsa, and at home against Nevada. You can't count out Hawaii too, because it has always been hard for Boise State to garner a win in Honolulu, and Boise State has lost the last two trips to Honolulu. Both in 2007 against conference champion and BCS buster Hawaii, and then later that year to East Carolina in their bowl game. Boise State has already topped their two biggest challenges on their schedule. A 19-8 win over previously ranked Oregon and a 51-34 win over Fresno.

Boise State had a close call on Saturday, even though the score doesn't tell. Boise State's run defense struggled as Fresno had three touchdowns on runs of 60+ yards. I hope to me it was an off night, but if it wasn't then Boise could have some challenges against Nevada who has a great scrambling quarterback calling the shots. Boise State didn't show much offense except for some big plays that garnered them the most points. They failed to efficiently drive down the field. They definitely have some more room to improve.

My prediction BSU finishes undefeated and is ranked #4 at the end of the regular season behind Florida, Texas, and Penn State.

Brigham Young University started this year under the radar at #20, but a thriller over #3 Oklahoma immediately put them on the spotlight. They jumped the most spots after a preseason poll ranking to #9 in the nation, ahead of Boise State and in the driver's seat to bust the BCS. After a 54-3 drubbing of Tulane it seemed like BYU had everything figured out. The defense was making plays, and the offense was back to how it was at the beginning of the 2008-09 year.

Then came Florida State. Florida State was previously ranked before losing to Miami, and then needing some last minute heroics to beat a terrible Jacksonville State team. With the game being in Provo, and the look of the Cougars it looked like BYU would be able to comfortably handle Florida State. Boy were they in for a surprise. Christian Ponder and the Seminoles had a sound first half. Scoring touchdowns on every drive. But BYU wasn't a slouch either. If it wasn't for an opening drive fumble in the redzone and a fumble on the last kickoff return, we could have went into halftime with the score 27-21, but instead 30-14. BYU was in catchup mode the rest of the game, and a pick 6 from Max Hall on the opening drive of the 3rd quarter didn't help much. Max Hall played like he did against TCU/Utah/Arizona last year. The defense was nowhere to be found. The Cougars could not make a stop on third down to save their life and the Florida State Seminoles rolled to a 54-28 victory.

BYU will be fine. Florida State is a solid team, and I believe they will have a successful season. BYU will also be successful if they tune up their defense, because let's face it, BYU cannot win when they go down by more than one score. They panic. They get in too big of a hurry and make up costly mistakes that turn a leak into a flood. Almost how I play my NCAA Football games on my XBOX. I worry for this team, and I don't think they'll be able to make a BCS berth this year. They'll be lucky to win the conference with the sound TCU team looking good.

My prediciont: BYU 10-2. They will lose to TCU and be 2nd in the MWC.

What do these two teams have in common? Well they both proved that they have a long ways to go on both offense and defense. Boise State has an easier schedule and right now that seems to be the better strategy, because even if BYU wins the rest of their games I don't think they'll be able to catch back up. And it will definitely look bad for BYU if they lose to Utah, because we all know who Utah lost to this week... Oregon. So even though we don't know which team is better right now, we do know which team has a better shot at the better games, and that is the BCS.

Hola! Ultimo Semana en el MTC

Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009

How is everyone doing? I hope everyone is having just a marvelous day. And I hope everyone had a great fourth of July. Oh how the time is flying and now I only have 5 more days here in the MTC. I'm so excited. Today while I was getting my shot I ran into a guy from Santiago and he just told me how I'm going to love the people.

So on Thursday I got my flight plans for where I'm going. i'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to leave in the morning. My companions and I leave the SLC airport around 3:30, Land in Dallas around 6:30 and then leave Dallas around 9:30PM and land in Santiago around 8:30AM It's going to be a long day but I'm anticipating it.

Most of my 4th of July was pretty much the same. Just normal teaching like always, but at the end we had a little production about America and how God made it possible for us to establish the church here in this land. It was so cheesy. The special effect were not that special and I spent almost half the movie laughing. That's okay. It had a lot of good information though. Afterwards they let us go outside and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks from the MTC. That was pretty fun.

So this week is called our teaching week where we only have two hours of class and the rest is spent teaching the gospel. Kinda getting us in the mood for how it's really going to be like in the field. I am humble though knowing that I'm going to know diddly squat once I get there...

This past week we've had fun scaring each other. Elder Wilson hid in Elder Ray's closet the other day and scared him. We took one of the poppers Dani gave me for the 4th and we popped it next to Elder Moore who freaked cause he didn't know what was going on. It's just been a fun week. I'm going to miss this district.

Some things I've learned this week as a missionary:

I dislike big people. Now I'm not singling out fat people... wait... I dislike clumsy people that's how I should say it. There are so many tall/fat/clumsy missionaries who just don't know how to walk and don't know how wide their shoulders are. I can't count the number of times I'll just be walking and a guy just runs into me. C'mon.

As far as doctrine goes... I have learned from one of the teachers that you don't have to teach all of the doctrine in order for an investigator to progress in the gospel. I used to get anxious when we didn't start talking about the gospel soon. He helped me realize to just be a pal to them. He said, "Do your investigators need to know what an apostasy is in order to get baptized" obviously no, and he said, "but they do need to be reading, praying, and going to church. So focus on that." Which is true

Well that's it for this week. Until Chile!

Oh yeah my Chile addresses:

For packages send them to the mission office:

Elder Samuel James Yoshida
Chile Rancagua Mission
German Riesco 230 Suite 730
Rancagua
Chile

For pouch (which is single sheeted letters, folded into three-panels, and taped at the top NO ENVELOPES)

Elder Samuel James Yoshida
Chile Rancagua Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150
USA

That is how DearElders will work. Write the DearElder and then they'll put it in the pouch and send it to me, which will take forever and cost money. So just e-mail me after July 13th... it will be much easier.

I love you guys
Vive la Chile
Elder Yoshida

An amazing week!

Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009

I got a bunch of things to tell you so look out, here we go.

Last week's P-Day was fun. After I e-mailed you folk I got to go to the Provo temple and clean. It was so fun. I never thought I would say this, but I actually enjoyed the service. I don't know why, because I got stuck cleaning the grease vents in the cafeteria. Oh man, good times. Brought me back to the good ole KFC days when I had to clean those stupid vents above the fryers as well. Zach you know what I'm talking about. But then I got to go clean the baptismal font. That was fun. I didn't know that vinegar is a main cleaning surprise. Let's just say I almost died from inhaling too much vinegar haha.

MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD? wow! What's up with that? I guess you can say that's the first major event that has happened while I've been gone. Interesting... I heard he was just barely becoming big in Europe. I almost feel for the guy. But what do I know. He's dead now.

So my mission president went to Japan on his mission and he comes storming in to the chapel before priesthood meeting and starts writing some symbols on the sign and looks straight at me. I'm say, "what is that?" and he says, "It's you. This is the Kanji for Yoshida" I was like whoa! that's intense. I ask, "What does it mean?" He gets a huge smile and says, "This symbol means the mouth of the samurai. And this symbol means a field. So you are going to the field to teach the mouth of the Samurai" How cool is that? It's like the perfect missionary last name and I didn't even know it. Maybe I'll have to draw it in my next letters so you can see what it looks like.

Friday's devotional was amazing. We were all anticipating to hear from the first presidency, but none of them showed up, but that's okay. Elders Perry, Oaks, Holland, Bednar, Cook, Christofferson, and Anderson were all there. It was so sweet. Elder Holland spoke to us and we all know how his talks are. Especially on missionary work.

On Sunday we had sacrament meeting with a big group. After sacrament meeting we were making our way back to a classroom to have our district meeting. We spotted a few missionaries congregating around something so we walk over there and sure enough President Monson and President Eyring were just standing out there in the front just chilling. I was literally only 10 ft away from them as they spoke about their Spanish stories. It was so awesome. I was sad we couldn't shake their hands, but just seeing them was amazing. It turns out that Every member of the first presidency and quorum of the 12 except Packer were in a sacrament meeting. A guy in our zone actually got to pass it to Monson. Lucky kid!

So this shows you how immature I am as a missionary. Elder Wilson and I have found these cool looking bugs and everytime we see them we flip them over on their back and make fun of them. Well we were getting ready to take a picture with our camera when all the sudden it started flying at us. Me and Elder Wilson freaked and were screaming, "OH MAN WE'RE TOAST!" haha Everyone around us was looking at us like we were queers but that's okay. You gotta have some fun here.

Yesterday's devotional was fun. Gerald N Lund talked to us. If you don't know who he is he's the dude who wrote the Works and the Glory books. He was so awesome. He taught me an awesome lesson that may help the other missionaries out there. He said, "when an appointment falls through, immediately find someone to teach, because that might be the Lord putting someone else in your path at that exact time." He then talked about many miracles that happened of conversions that took place when other appointments fell through.

That's it for this week. People... 12 days left. So if you ever thought, "maybe I'll send Elder Yoshida something :)" you might want to get on it. Haven't heard anything from any of my friends in a week. Grr. That's okay though. The work is great and I'm sure you're all busy. I'm not sure how Dear Elders work. I think they print them out in Salt Lake and then they have to send them to Chile so It will still probably take just as long now. Anywho's I love you all. Sorry it's so long. Take care.

Hola

Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009

I'm going to have to apologize before hand to everyone out there. Nothing exciting happened this week and I really don't have anything to write about. All the missionaries here are getting antsy for today and the rest of the weekend. As Braden discussed about getting a new president this week we get all of them! That's right, over 120 mission presidents are coming today to get the training they need. I don't know if Elder Hellewell knows him yet, but I've seen pictures of him. Although I can't remember the name. But anywho, because all these dudes are coming this weekend, we are going to have general authorities walking around left and right. Apostles, seventy, you name it. Instead of having our devotional on Tuesday we are having it on Friday, and we are expected to have one of the members of the first presidency speak. It is so awesome. I can't wait.

The language is coming great. Last week we taught the first lesson in Spanish for the first time. It was pretty hard. All we have left to learn is past subjunctive and then its just a matter of getting fluent at it.

The time is ticking down here in the MTC. We are now the oldest district in our zone. 19 more days til Chile.

Love you all
Elder Yoshida

Hey Everyone!

Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009

Another week gone by, and another week I'm getting closer to blowing this joint. Being a missionary is great, and this week flew. I don't have as many experiences to write, but I will try to entertain you.

I'll start with a Spanish lesson. NEVER DESCRIBE SOMEONE AS CALIENTE. Many high school teens will say "that girl es muy caliente" thinking they're saying she's very hot. No way. In Spanish, when you describe "someone" as being caliente. You're actually saying that they are very willing to... well the slang term is a 5 letter word that starts with an "h" hopefully you get my drift.

I'd like to give a shout out to my step sister Liz. Happy Birthday! and hope all is well.

Funny story: so last P-Day we were doing laundry, and I returned to my room. There's this awesome elder in my district, Elder Wilson, who I've become pretty close with. He dared me to jump a whole flight of stairs. I was like, "dude I got this" So I jumped, and cleared the stairs, however I did not give myself enough room to catch my self and bashed my head into the brick wall in front of me. I think I knocked myself out for about five seconds. It was funny, but very stupid as a missionary. I learned a valuable lesson there. :)

The TRC is a place in the MTC where you teach volunteers in real life situations. We go to the TRC once a week and boy does it get intense. The only thing I can compare it to is when I would get ready for a football game.

Sorry there's not more to write about. The week just flew by this time with not much going on. We're getting new zone leaders this week. It'll be interesting to see who it is. I love you all and thank you for your support.

Elder Yoshida