Don't wait, enjoy Taysom Hill and BYU football now

It's happening. College football is happening. Two-point conversions. Double-reverse passes. Acrobatic interceptions. Missed field goals (oh hey Chris Petersen).

It's all happening right before our eyes, and as expected, it's magnificent. (Confession: I wrote much of this while watching an abysmal matchup between Hawaii and Colorado -- and it still warms my heart.)

For the BYU faithful, we are still a few hours away from seeing our Cougars take the field. Before we know it, Algie Brown will be running through people, Bronson Kaufusi will be invading backfields and Bronco Mendenhall will be thinking to himself with his hands on his hips as the defense takes the field.

And before that game finishes, a good number of us will go back to lamenting about the linebackers, cursing the offensive linemen and wondering what kind of alcohol Robert Anae had to be drinking to think that calling THAT play was a good idea because there is no way a sober human being would do such a thing. At some point in the game, something will go wrong (as it does with every college football team) and the words "here we go again" will undoubtedly be said.

We'll go from being giddy to grumpy faster than Devon Blackmon can run the 40.

While there is nothing wrong with constructive criticism, some tough breaks or bad blitz calls shouldn't stop us from enjoying a new season of football. Most importantly, we shouldn't let anything keep us from appreciating our final games with Taysom Hill.

The large majority of BYU fans would be able to testify in court that Taysom is an incredibly gifted football player. We marveled at that 50+ yard TD run against Hawaii in 2012, his impressive dissection of the Houston defense through the air in 2013 and his ability to jump over Texas defenders in 2014. But even then, a lot of us won't fully appreciate him until he is gone.

We had a glimpse of this last season when he went down with that nasty leg injury. We watched as Christian Stewart performed admirably but still couldn't quite fill the massive void that Taysom created. But even after losing Taysom for his junior season, we all figured he would be back for his senior campaign. We figured right, but now this is all we have left.

Now is the time to thank our lucky stars that #4 is on our team.

If this plea sounds like it's coming from an individual who has lost somebody near and dear to his heart, that's because it is.

I happen to be a life-long fan of the woebegone Colorado Rockies, and to be frank, they are a gosh dang terrible baseball organization. I'll spare you the details, but just know that good stuff seldom happens to my team and a couple of weeks ago one of the few good things about the Rockies -- all-galaxy shortstop Troy Tulowitzki -- was traded away.

For the last few seasons, the Rockies general manager assured the fan base the Tulo was the foundation of the organization and that he wasn't going anywhere. With that false sense of security, I could always say to myself "At least we'll always have Troy." Now he is gone for good, and I'm left with the pit in my stomach knowing that I took a lot of those games for granted.

After having that gut-wrenching experience, I'm pledging not to take any part of this BYU season for granted. That doesn't mean I'll be a delusional optimist that refuses to acknowledge a weakness in the secondary or a flaw in special teams. It does mean you won't be hearing me say the phase "I can't wait until next week / month / year" because I've already done enough waiting. It's 2015 and Taysom Hill is BYU's quarterback. I'm a fan of the here and now.

So my dear friends, as we embark on this journey together, I ask that you follow the sage advice of one Billy Madison. If he was here, he would tell us to cherish it.

Cherish it while we still can.