"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

- Yogi Berra

And if you do, you still might not.

Expectations are huge this season for Brigham Young and Utah football.

Maybe too huge.

Record numbers of season tickets are being sold. Fans are buzzing. BYU is ranked 16th in the AP preseason poll and 17th in the coaches' poll. Utah is ranked 16th in Playboy's preseason poll. Many prognosticators are putting the Cougars and the Utes at the top of their lists of teams most likely to bounce from a non-BCS league into a BCS bowl, a task that might require them to go undefeated.

And that notion is happily accepted by BYU, a team willing to not only embrace perfection, but roll around in the grass with her.

"Quest for Perfection" is the Cougars' mantra, a two-sided coin for them to carry everywhere this season: one, holding out a goal as much about the pursuit as the result, but the flipside, a show of confidence/arrogance/bravado/presumption that is best not put up on placards or printed on T-shirts.

Bronco Mendenhall has explained that chasing perfection has less to do with wins and losses - the Cougars have had only one unbeaten season in their modern history - and more to do with unblemished living - a regular occurrence at BYU.

Kidding.

That balky explanation, though, is hard to buy, considering BYU has gone 11-2 in consecutive years, undefeated in conference, all around. Where was the Cougars' personal reach for perfection coming off their 6-6 season?

The emphasis now is on the quest rather than the perfection, at least that's the spin from the inside out. But not among a lot of unapologetic fans who have the BCS firmly in their sights and, let's be honest, the same goes for the players, too. They want to win every game. What player doesn't? But suggesting it, talking about it, puts a ridiculous amount of pressure on human competitors who are likely to either screw up or get outperformed somewhere along the line.

Perfection is a cruel mistress. You lean toward her, she leans away.

You tell people you're going to win her over, she kicks you in the teeth and laughs at your pain.

And, then, you look foolish, especially if she escapes your grasp early, say, at Washington in the second week of the season, and you have the rest of the campaign to rearrange your focus and lower your quest for some lesser form of preeminence.

Edward De Bono, who I think is either a noted thinker/author or the little rich dude who used to own the 49ers, once said: "Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations."

Arthur Koestler did Eddie one better, saying: "Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion."

On the other hand, some level-headed soul said: "Better to aim for the stars and land in the trees than to aim for the trees and land in the mud."

Either way, Mendenhall is enormously optimistic. With 10 returning starters on offense and enough athletes in the cupboard to fill out the defense, he says, a little more than a week before the opening kick, he's pleased with what he's got: "I feel very good about our team. I like the chemistry. I like the talent. I like the way they're being coached. I like their willingness. I'm encouraged."

The Utes have not spoken much about any designs on complete transcendence this season. They know they'll be good, but they're also preoccupied, scrambling to fill out their depth chart and get ready for Michigan. Not such a bad way to do their business.

In 2004, everyone tried to get that Utah team to discuss their plans to go undefeated, and it responded with enough cliches to fill up a Kyle Whittingham postgame press conference. "One game at a time" bubbled up as the phrase of the season, and as excruciatingly colorless as that was, the Utes took their own advice and went 12-0.

A conference title might be a more reasonable goal on account of Utah not getting one since Urban bolted, and that's exactly what quarterback Brian Johnson says the team is dialing in on: "We expect to win the Mountain West Conference championship. We have the talent and the mindset."

To do so, the Utes will have to beat BYU, a feat they've missed out on ever so slightly the past two seasons, but their chances are bolstered, they believe, by getting the Cougars at Rice-Eccles. Just as importantly for them, they'll have to get past inferior opponents, their bugaboo over the past few years, when they've messed themselves over losing to teams such as UNLV, San Diego State, Wyoming, and Colorado State.

Defensive end Paul Kruger says Utah is on target, on schedule in the run-up to whatever will come: "We're real happy with everybody we're real excited about the way things are going."

So, apparently, is everyone else, both blue and red, coaches and players, and fans on each side, thoroughly sure and convinced about where their team is going, that it will, in fact, get there.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.