The Drive – not making me feel great about our offensive coaching

[Ute Bc]

I know it was a quick shot but A-Rod didn’t instill confidence in me. He sure wasn’t really confident in Travis.

Which brings me to my question: Why isn’t Dennis Erickson running the O?

[GadValleyUte]

He doesn’t want to. I think he loves recruiting and coaching studs at thge most instinctive position and then being a sounding board for the younger guys. Coaching Coaches. Lots of the fun of a coordinator or head coach. None of the BS/pressure. Great job for an old guy with his resume. I’ll take that over not having him.

[Anonymous]

The offense already looks better this season. I am not worried really at all.

[CawCawUte]

The Utes are not better offensively. 108th in total offense through 3 games. Terrible.

[Duhwayne]

I hear you. Efficiency however is excellent. If we get to the redzone it goes in. 70% pass completions. We need better run blocking and pass pro and the receivers will get open more. The long ball is as shaky as last year though.

[Ute Bc]

I’ve heard that said before (he didn’t want to be OC),however, when he was made RB coach he said he was surprised by Whitts decision. I’m very concerned that we still don’t have “the guy” to coach the offense.

[UteStuckInSeattle]

I believe that shot was from early in camp when there we some big concerns about the offense and all reports indicate that Travis WAS struggling a lot more than a senior should.

About a week later I believe that reports indicated that Travis’ performance improved dramatically.

Perhaps A-Rod knows what Travis needs to hear to get him motivated? After all, he did recruit him.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by UteStuckInSeattle.

[Hockeybeard]

Agreed – all the reports out of the first 2 weeks of camp were that the QBs were terrible. The last week in Fall camp, something switched on for TW and he went gangbusters and started dealing aces. From what we’ve seen the first 115 minutes he’s played, I would bet the discussions in the staff room are significantly different now then they were then.

[radioUte]

Unfortunately as 3 games have borne out so far, what switched on halfway through camp wasn’t TW or the other quarterbacks, it was the spin machine. I haven’t seen any demonstrable difference in the offense so far. Actually, without Clay this year, the offense is worse.

[Hockeybeard]

Go watch the first quarter and a half of the USU game and tell me that that offense is worse than last years.

USU is not dog meat, they have 2 legit NFL players on their defense and a quality defensive coordinator. You can even add in the factor that it was a rivalry game and they were hyped to play and beat Utah. WE RAN ALL OVER THEM AND THEY COULDN’T STOP US. The only thing that gave them a breath of fresh air was our starting QB dinged his shoulder on a 40 yd run.

If Travis is back, our offense is leaps and bounds better than last year. If its Kendall, then its comparable to last years.

[CawCawUte]

The offense looks better. Then again they are ranked 108th statistically. So not really any better are they!?

[Clemsonute]

I think it’s that low because of Michigan’s D was damn good. Then Wilson being hurt for most of the Utah State game and then Fresno. We all know how Thurm (KT) performed in that game. I would hold out judgment on the Offense for a few games more.

[jrj84105]

In the last few years we’ve typically had one or two playmakers who could make things happen even when the rest of the offense was a mess, which it was due to poor QB play, poor pass blocking, poor WR route-running, and inability of WRs to hold onto the ball.

This year, we really lack any playmakers outside of Booker (maybe Covey can be that guy) which has meant that we are reliant on actually executing our offense across the board at all positions. With the exception of terrible WR blocking and a few inopportune holding calls, we’ve largely done that with TW at QB. The offensive production hasn’t caught up to the overall improvement, but for once we just need incremental improvement across the board rather than outright heroics at a few positions in order to have a semi-effective offense. I’m hoping TW is back and that those improvements start happening this week.

[NorthEZUte]

I agree with the sentiment that the A-Rod criticizing TW was taken out of context and cleverly edited to make it seem like Utah was more worried about the situation than they really were as the Michigan game approached.