Utah Finally Making The Move

Long have we waited for this day.

The Pacific-10 Conference announced today that it has extended an invitation to the University of Utah to join the conference. The University of Utah will hold a press conference on Thursday, June 17 starting at 1 p.m. MT in Rice-Eccles Stadium.

See the release here.

I've kind of adopted a 'I'll believe it when I see it' mentality when told that the University of Utah is headed to the Pac-10. As a fan of University of Utah athletics for the past 15 or so years, I've learned that's the montra you have to adopt. Every year, we Ute fans have heard the same optimistic chorus of misleading banter.

"I heard the Pac-10 is going to expand to 12 and take BYU and Utah"

"Yeah, well so and so said that Utah and Boise State are in and they're going to split it in two divisions"

"No, no, that's wrong. Ohhhh Cody, you're hung like a circus mule."

Actually, I've definitely never heard that last one. But my point is that a move to the Pac-10 has been a carrot dangling in front of Utah fans’ faces for a long time. I can't remember how many times I've seen the two Salt Lake City newspapers -- the Deseret News (for Mormons) and The Salt Lake Tribune (for non-Mormons) -- say that a move to the Pac-10 is in the works. Having worked closely with the Utah Athletics Department for three years, I've even heard a Sports Information Director or two throw it out there.

But it's never happened. In the age of quick-trigger 'journalism' so often practiced by espn.com and the like, I've learned to not buy into hypotheticals or unnamed source stories. If I did, Urban Meyer would coach the Irish, Tom Izzo would be in Cleveland co-leading the Cavs with Lebron and Pat Forde would be God.

Now that the move is finally going to happen, I don't really know what to feel or think.

Tempered optimism. That's all I can muster at this point.