John Mayer is seriously studying his numerous battles, including a particularly nasty one with his hairdo.

Poison gas clouds, a profusion of explosions, people getting assassinated — such is the imagery John Mayer invokes on his latest release, Battle Studies. What could cause these scenes of terror and confusion? The answer appears to be love.

At age 32, Mayer has apparently amassed enough experiences in courting women to corroborate Pat Benatar’s assertion that love is, indeed, a battlefield. And now he has graciously decided to pass the wealth of knowledge he’s gained from studying this battle on to us, his listeners. And so springs forth John Mayer’s first themed album — every track but one (a cover of Cream’s 1968 hit “Crossroads”) is exclusively a love song. Or more appropriately, each is a song about love.

I don’t pretend to be a professional music critic, but I am a colossal fan of John Mayer. This acquaintance with his music leads me to these observations of his latest work:

Battle Studies is not Continuum. Fresh off the John Mayer Trio blues binge, Continuum was principally a guitar rock album, with lyrical content providing the garnish. At first glance, Battle Studies appears to be just the opposite. What remains unclear is exactly which direction away from Continuum Mayer seems to be going musically. At times, Studies feels like the late ’80s, and at others it could easily be featured on Country Music Television. For now, he seems content to displace his label as guitar virtuoso, putting emphasis almost exclusively on lyrical content. Even on “Crossroads,” a blues classic, Mayer resists the urge to flex his guitar muscle, laying down an extremely tame solo partway through. (Instead, he opts to record the song through a bizarre effect pedal, making it sound like the title music to “Contra” for the NES).

Mayer appears to still be concerned with commercial success. Don’t let the extended title to “Half of My Heart” fool you — the song most definitely does not feature Taylor Swift. Unless singing four words over again for a total of ten seconds constitutes “featuring” an artist. What is more likely is that Mayer agreed to “collaborate” because Swift is surging in the music scene with a fan base that actually purchases music. Simply having Swift’s name on the track automatically means a greater volume of record sales. It may be just as well though, since the song sounds like the music video should be set in a high school hallway during class change.

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Utah's heroes celebrate the state's first ever professional sports championship.

The struggles of Real Salt Lake as a new franchise are long gone. They have established themselves as heroes in the state. With RSL’s unlikely arrival in the playoffs and amazing MLS Cup run, they brought Utah its first professional sports championship. When asked about this, Coach Jason Kreis said he had a feeling their win would “really, really” mean a lot to Utah and the fans. I know it means a lot to me. And from the looks of it, it means a lot to many other Utahns as well.

Real Salt Lake could not have done it all in more dramatic fashion. Having lost their second-to-last regular season game, their playoff hopes were hanging on a thread. There were three teams that had to lose in order for them to keep any hope of taking a step into the tournament. They did not back down. Rather, they thrived on the opportunity, beating Colorado 3-0 at home. As if by destiny, things played out just how RSL needed them.

In the first round of the playoffs, they knocked off the defending champion Columbus Crew, beating them first in Salt Lake City with a goal in the 88th minute and later in Columbus after rallying from a 2-0 deficit. Real then faced a daunting challenge from the Chicago Fire. Nick Rimando, RSL’s goalie, made three saves to win the game on penalty kicks, and Cuautemoc Blanco, a notorious soccer player from Mexico, departed the Fire in disappointing fashion thanks to Real. With that win, they moved on to face the Hollywood-esque dynasty from California, the L.A. Galaxy, starring league MVP Landon Donovan and English superstar David Beckham.

RSL liked being viewed as the underdogs by virtually everyone outside the state of Utah — it fueled them. Before the game, hundreds of RSL fans met at a plaza near the stadium and started chanting and waving flags before marching to Qwest Field, many of them enduring a 30-hour round trip to watch their team in the final. It was an impressive, if not intimidating, act by RSL fans showing just how confident they were in their team, and just how much they wanted to bring home the championship cup. There was no such showing by Galaxy fans.

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The winningest quarterback in BYU history, regardless of whether or not you like him.

Week 12: BYU vs. Utah

Just when I thought I had this BYU team all figured out, they had to go and play a game like this. When I thought their defense was starting to get soft, they stuffed the Air Force offense and forced them into committing four turnovers. Max Hall and the offense looked pretty darn efficient, even if they couldn’t get away with deception.

The key to BYU winning that game was the fact that they were able to control the line of scrimmage. They stopped the Falcons’ fullback dives at the line of scrimmage, leaving the outside backers and safeties to match up and stuff the option. Air Force are never effective throwing the ball, but holding them to 5 of 21 is still pretty good.

The thing that everyone noticed was how much fire BYU played with. I have a tradition of going down to the front row of seats and sitting in someone’s empty spot until the event staff comes to kick me out. I’ve been successful for at least one quarter of every game. Anyway, while down by the field, the BYU sideline was hopping with energy. They were talking trash the whole game, but still kept their composure and executed.

Legend of the Hall
This last game against Air Force could very well sum up the entire career of Max Hall. If you look back at the game with a very objective perspective, you will see that Max Hall did a pretty good job throwing the ball. If you’re not convinced, just look at the stat line. Hall went 33-45, for 377 yards with five touchdowns and two interceptions. Any school in the country would be glad to take that kind of stat line from their QB, but here at BYU we see the two interceptions and the fumble and we roll our eyes.

Max Hall has had a great career here at BYU. First off, he has more wins than any other quarterback in BYU history. For as much as everyone bags on the BYU defense, this has to count for something. Second, his completion percentage and QB rating have gotten better each year. His Greatness Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy can’t say the same. Third, he has some marquee wins that define a quality QB, including triumphs over Oklahoma, Arizona, TCU, Utah and two wins over UCLA.

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The holidays are here! After we carve our turkeys and get a heaping side of football on Thursday, it will only be a few short weeks until finals and then Christmas and New Year’s. I am certain that we are all looking forward to the family feasts and free time that await us. But as winter descends and we prepare to dive into 2010 and all the madness that it will bring — like people saying “0-10/oh-ten” when they don’t mean to, as if 10 were a single digit number — I’d like to take a look back at some of the memorable figures, moments and trends from an entertaining fall.

Michael Vick — Remember when the Eagles signed him after his nearly two-year prison stint on dog fighting charges? Sports fans were anxious to see if Vick, formerly the most electrifying player in the NFL, could reestablish himself among the league’s elite. He has overwhelmingly failed to do so. However, I submit that his comeback has not been fruitless.

It did give me the chance to hear reports about Vick’s work with Philadelphia high schools in concert with animal rights groups “to reach young people” and be a “voice against organized animal fighting.” I’m sorry, but that is just hilarious. I have been out of high school for a while, but I feel pretty confident in saying that, on the list of delinquent activities for 14-18-year-old teens, dog fighting ranks pretty low. It just wasn’t a big thing at my school. I know these animal rights people are forcing Vick into this and the peer pressure talk is good, but if you want to help kids, maybe you should just stick with “don’t do drugs.”

BYU Football (and fans) — Like any good team in sports (especially collegiate sports), BYU’s football team wants their fans to feel like part of their success. I think I can say that, by and large, they do. After all, who wasn’t dancing in the streets after BYU beat Oklahoma in the season opener? In fact, I think I would have to thank the fans even a bit more than the team for getting our hopes up so ridiculously high that we thought we were a top five team — only to have them come crashing down the second we play any team with a mobile quarterback. How many years in a row do we have to do this?

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In our inaugural sports podcast, Jake Welch, Ben Wagner, Daniel Anderson, William Sutton and Jamie Wood tackle a myriad of topics, from Real Salt Lake’s recent MLS championship to this weekend’s BYU-Utah football game to Jonathan Tavernari (of all people). You can stream and/or download the podcast below, but a word from the wise — due to some volume problems, it’s probably best experienced through headphones. We hope to iron all those out by next week’s episode. As always, thanks for reading — and enjoy!

You can stream the podcast by simply clicking on the link below, or you can download it to your computer by right-clicking the link and selecting “Save Link As” from the menu.

Listen to: Rhombus Podcast 002 — Sports Podcast (11.23.09)