I've been giving a lot of attention to the Cougars recently, and I'll probably do one or two season wrap up posts about them now that their season is over, but now my attention is turning more toward RSL and the rest of MLS. Grabbing my immediate attention, RSL will face visiting Toronto FC in a battle of turf based, recent expansion teams this Monday.

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I wasn't able to watch the game live Friday night, but I did record the BYU-TV broadcast to watch on Saturday. I really wanted to see how the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency program looked. I've got to say that it's an impressive program.

For the most part, Vancouver owned the field last night coming away with a 2-0 win.

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Last night was a rarity in soccer, a big game in which the final score didn't really matter. RSL's reserves beat the BYU Cougars in the Coug's brand new Stadium at South Field in front of 3110 fans. Beat is probably too soft a word, RSL's Robbie Findley put the ball past BYU's Brandon Gillam twice in the stretch of two minutes midway through the first half, at which point RSL seemed to let off the gas.

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It's been a good weekend for the teams I follow. Both BYU and RSL won their games, with BYU claiming the season series over Ogden 3-0-1 and RSL climbing into 1st place in the (somewhat weak) west. RSL's U-17 team also won it's final round game against DC United's U-17 team, earning both the SUM U-17 championship and entry into the 2009 Trofeo Quixote U-17 tournament in Madrid, Spain.

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Intersting results last night. Crystal Palace Baltimore has to be a huge surprise, even in losing last night they were impressive taking the New England Revolution to penalties what more could you ask from a USL2 side? I'm also glad to see both USL1 sides moving on (Seattle on PKs over the Kansas City Wizards after a 0-0 tie and Charleston on a 3-1 win over FC Dallas).

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Tonight I've decided to try something new. I'm typing up this blog entry and will post it once I get home (I'd have posted it from here, but I can't get any WiFi signal here at Haws Field). Hopefully this goes pretty well.

After last weeks loss, BYU coach Chris Watkins talked about using the remainder of the season to get younger players some time as the Cougars build toward next season.

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I've really enjoyed seeing more coverage of soccer in Utah (although it's pretty RSL-centric). I wanted to get a better feel for the coverage, so I asked Michael Lewis from the Salt Lake Tribune James Edward of the Deseret News if they'd be willing to answer some questions in a joint interview. They were both happy to respond, and the following is the result:

Covering soccer seems like a dream job to a lot of fans, how did you end up in your positions?

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Last night my family and I went to take in the Ogden Outlaws BYU Cougars game, and watch the fireworks afterward. It was a hard fought game, though the Cougars (who have come to expect to beat the Outlaws) have to be disappointed with their play and the result. With the fireworks show after the game, and then yardwork that needed to be done this morning, I haven't been able to get to my write-up until now.

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Hey, it looks like the Deseret News has some coverage up from Thursday's game. It's not much, less than BYU's own press release, but it is something.

I'd love to see more regular coverage of the PDL (especially the local Ogden and BYU teams) in our local papers. If you'd like to help make it happen, drop a line to the Sports Editor, Kent Condon.

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Saturday night, the Cougars will visit the suddenly hot Cascade Surge. BYU has been playing well too, chalking up road wins at Ogden and Spokane. Zack De Francis is continuing to score with a goal in each of the last two games bringing him to a season total of 7 (check out my interview with Zack if you're a De Francis fan).

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Zack De Francis has been the most searched for name on my blog, and has played a big roll in BYU's success so far this year. Over the last several days, Zack has been kind enough to trade emails with me to create the interview below. Read on to learn a little bit more about BYU's star striker.

Right now you're among the statistical leaders in the PDL, despite having played fewer games than the other players.

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Just a short report for now, I'll post more on Monday when I have some time.

The Cougars got a big win (1-5) over the Cascade Surge last night. I was out camping with my scouts, so I didn't get to see it. It sounds like there were some injuries coming out of that game though.

Tonight, BYU took 3 more points in a 1-2 win over Spokane.

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Okay, time for another look at MLS scariness. I've settled into the formula I hope to use for the rest of the season (I'm not going to go back and recalculate scariness for the previous weeks, but I am scaling the scores down to match the current range). The formula is as follows:

pts (game) + gd (game) + opp ppg (last 5 games) + 1 (away team) I figure a weighted average over the last five weeks (or as many weeks as the teams have played) to come up with the current scariness. Click to continue reading...

Okay, for a first post on Monday morning, I thought I'd put up my scariness rankings for the USL1 (now that they've got three weeks of games under their belts. I've also settled into a formula for each game:

pts (game) + gd (game) + opp ppg (last 5 games) + 1 (away team)

I figure a weighted average over the last five weeks (or as many weeks as the teams have played) to come up with the current scariness.

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Last weeks scariness rankings were impacted by an error I made in caclulations ... This week I've tried to ensure no such wonkiness has occured. This week's edition also contains a new feature I've added a sparkline-style graphic showing points earned over the last several games (I'll add a similar graphic showing scariness fluctuations as the season progresses).

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