• The KillerFrogs

30 years ago tonight - TCU vs BYU The Cricket Game

J

JurisFrog

Active Member
Deep Purple said:
A few things wrong with that Mormon folklore. In the first place, Mormon crickets aren't true crickets, they're katydids. As such they have no wings and are flightless. When they do swarm, they do so entirely on the ground, advancing little more than about a mile per day. So they do not appear suddenly in an airy "dark cloud" as the Mormon story describes. Their progress is slow and easily detectable well in advance, even with mid-19th-century observation and technology.

We don't know exactly what triggers the swarm, but what triggers the constant advance is that Mormon crickets are highly cannibalistic. Those in the lead ranks who don't constantly advance risk getting overwhelmed and eaten by hungrier crickets in the following ranks, who are never the first to reach the food sources. So these insects don't subsist entirely on the wheat crops of Mormon farmers.

Then there's the seagull part of the story. Gulls live in very large colonies and do regularly swarm, but only in coastal areas, where they feed mainly on small fish and crabs.. They are opportunistic feeders who will eat insects (and worms, slugs, and snails) when available, and they will even fly hundreds of miles inland in search of food. But none of the nearly 30 species of gulls swarm in large numbers more than 700 miles inland (as in Salt Lake City) to feed on insects they have no way of knowing are also swarming. Insects are not a gull's primary food source. They are an occasional supplement, like grain to grass-feeding animals.

Almost every aspect of the 1848 Mormon cricket folk tale is suspect.
Click to expand...

Must you show your ass at every opportunity? Good grief.
 
satis1103

satis1103

DAOTONPYH EHT LIAH LLA
I was there, it was bizarre. Really stoked for the win at the time though. BYU was a really good program, only a couple years removed from a NC.

Was that the same game that an ambulance had to pick up a fan from the alumni center? The result was not good from that medical emergency, as far as I remember.
 
MadFrog

MadFrog

Active Member
I was there too. It was nasty that night. I thought Jim Wacker was a lot of fun, and he had some good victories. He never won a conference title though. BUT, Gary has given us victories and championships that I would never have dreamed of. I still can't get over that we won the Rose Bowl and have had several top 10 finishes. Thank you Gary.
 
B

Boonescabanaboy

Active Member
Holy Baylor, OSU had a cricket game too.

FB98-Crickets.jpg
 
Fred Garvin

Fred Garvin

I service the entire Quad Cities Area
Deep Purple said:
A few things wrong with that Mormon folklore. In the first place, Mormon crickets aren't true crickets, they're katydids. As such they have no wings and are flightless. When they do swarm, they do so entirely on the ground, advancing little more than about a mile per day. So they do not appear suddenly in an airy "dark cloud" as the Mormon story describes. Their progress is slow and easily detectable well in advance, even with mid-19th-century observation and technology.

We don't know exactly what triggers the swarm, but what triggers the constant advance is that Mormon crickets are highly cannibalistic. Those in the lead ranks who don't constantly advance risk getting overwhelmed and eaten by hungrier crickets in the following ranks, who are never the first to reach the food sources. So these insects don't subsist entirely on the wheat crops of Mormon farmers.

Then there's the seagull part of the story. Gulls live in very large colonies and do regularly swarm, but only in coastal areas, where they feed mainly on small fish and crabs.. They are opportunistic feeders who will eat insects (and worms, slugs, and snails) when available, and they will even fly hundreds of miles inland in search of food. But none of the nearly 30 species of gulls swarm in large numbers more than 700 miles inland (as in Salt Lake City) to feed on insects they have no way of knowing are also swarming. Insects are not a gull's primary food source. They are an occasional supplement, like grain to grass-feeding animals.

Almost every aspect of the 1848 Mormon cricket folk tale is suspect.
Click to expand...

African or European gulls?
 
NNM

NNM

I can eat 50 eggs
hornedfrog86 said:
Yes, I was there dressed as a somewhat preppy grad. student. Cricket guts on the topsiders.
Click to expand...

I still have my topsiders from TCU in the back of my closet. I break them out now and then to freak out my kids. Somewhere along the line I put some leather preservative on them and they’re still going strong.

Lost my members only jacket though.
 
Deep Purple

Deep Purple

Full Member
Double V said:
Well, Deep...what say you???? Retraction of the gull-portion of your rebuttal to the legend of the Mormon cricket???

http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/bird/california_gull#
Click to expand...
When Mormon crickets swarm, they can't fly so they must crawl, and they do so in the hundreds of thousands. I haven't seen anyone post a link showing that flocks of gulls in the tens of thousands descend on these swarms to consume them en masse within the relatively short time it would take to save fruiting wheat crops. In fact, it's solidly documented that cricket swarms of that magnitude last for several years up to a couple of decades.

I invite you to take on proving the biologists wrong. If you can show evidence that swarms of gulls can eradicate swarms of Mormon crickets so rapidly that it saves human crops, I'll retract. If you can't offer the evidence, my rebuttal stands. And in that case, well Double V... what say you????
 
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