Jeremiah Jensen, a former Star Valley local currently works for KSL out of Salt Lake covering Utah sports and gave some of his time this morning to Dahl and Aaron during the Sports Friday morning show to talk about what’s happening in the world of sports particularly in Utah. First off though as pointed out by Jensen, the NFL is king in the world of the American sports world and wanted to look to the Conference championship Sunday coming up this weekend as the Bengals take on the Chiefs in a rematch of last year and the Eagles host the 49ers, Jensen is putting his metaphorical money on the 49ers and Bengals this weekend.
Jensen grew up a Broncos fan and still covers them mostly professionally among NFL teams and in his opinion the key to the Broncos future is entirely dependent on Russell Wilson becoming the Russ of old as if he continues his play from last season the Broncos find themselves in too much of a draft capital and cap space hole. Wilson of course coming off his worst season as a pro with the Broncos this past season but with the firing of coach Nathanial Hackett we will see if that has an impact on the Broncos future.
The Utah high school football scene continues to be a bit of a hub for D1 programs across the country, as Jensen put it “the high school football here per capita is elite” as for 20+ consecutive years a Utah high school player has been drafted into the NFL. One of the names brought up in question during the interview was American Fork Safety Davis Andrews who is currently being bid-for between the Utes of Utah and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Andrews will be in attendance for the Blue-Gold game this weekend.
On the basketball front, the Utah Utes are having a competitive season in the PAC12 conference, beating Arizona in Utah earlier in the year and currently sitting pretty in 2nd place in the conference behind UCLA and Jeremiah believes the team could find itself playing some meaningful tournament ball come March. BYU on the other hand is having a slightly disappointing season but still having a winning season but next season will have to join the BIG12 conference with teams like Kansas and other such powerhouses in the conference and this could prove to be an early headache for the Cougars next season.
The Cougars football program may find slightly more immediate success thanks to their overall talent level for one but also due to their already rigorous independent schedule the team has played the past several season often sprinkling it with top tier power 5 opponents. The gauntlet of playing Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Baylor, TCU, and Kansas St could prove itself to be a slog but as the team finds its footing with upcoming season the BYU Cougars could easily find themselves competing in the conference for years to come.
The full interview can be listened to below:
