Doppelganger

Lately there has been a lot of BYU news when it relates to collegiate sports. With the loss of Utah the Mountain West Conference is not looking too good anymore and BYU is planning to/already has left the conference to pursue independent status in the NCAA. The bigger news in my opinion is our new school sports slogan. We Are!

Really BYU? That is the best you could come up with? Do we need to be even more like Penn State? There have been more than one instance of me finding Penn State apparel in the BYU bookstore. If it's confusing enough to confuse a minimum wage college bookstore stock supervisor then imagine how annoying it is for the rest of us. Let's go over all the things that make us just like Penn State. Note: It is possible some of these things were BYU related before they were Penn State related but for comparison sake I'm just going to list them all.

Happy Valley - I've heard both areas referred to by this name. For Penn State it refers to the area around the State College campus and the sports teams that reside there. It apparently was from the Great Depression because that area was not hit as hard by the difficult times. For BYU the area south of Salt Lake is commonly referred to as Happy Valley as well. I would assume the meaning now more relates to the presumed happiness of the Mormons who live there but all the references to it I could find in my whopping 2 minute Google session refer back to prescription drug abuse by Mormon housewives. Err what? Then again that's a much more modern description than the original nickname.

Colors - Both schools use blue and white. Technically BYU uses Dark blue and white with some tan but it is still very similar. Looking at multiple logos, uniforms, ads, etc... they are often identical. Going a little bit back in time BYU also just used blue and white.

Mascot - What the heck is a Nittany Lion? Oh it's just a mountain lion that once roamed the Mount Nittany area near the school. What's another word for mountain lion? Cougar. Fun fact, a cougar is also an older woman cruising for younger men.

Now we have the same chant; We Are! I know it's not the most original slogan in the world but that's just my point. 0 points for originality BYU. Fully Invested was much better (even if it required an apparel purchase to be true). On second though that one was stupid too.