I look forward to these interviews every week…so insightful! My 2 big take aways from today’s convo:
1) Gabe Reid should be making his decision within the next 2 weeks. Utah is still high on his list and Brit’s best comparison to GR is Maxs Tupai. He said GR’s biggest thing (like most any other player) is just wanting to go where he feels the coaches want him the most and believe in him the most. He said that Gabe and Karene are definitely close and it’s a big draw for him to get to play his final year of college football with his brother.
My question. Why wouldn’t our coaches want GR and completely believe he’d be the perfect fit on the other side of Fillinger? Especially since Xavier Carlton didn’t work out at DE and the fact that we have such an excellent opportunity to get GR, I don’t see why we wouldn’t go all out to bring him home to Utah? I totally trust our coaches whatever ends up happening…I am just really hoping we get him!
2) According to Covey, we are in good shape at WR “as is” without bringing in anyone else from the portal. He said Utah could bring a WR in from the portal but they don’t have to. And then Covey went on to explain how Ludwig’s offense doesn’t ask a lot from the WR position. I think we all know this as there’s been a lot of talk on the subject over the past couple of years about our “throw game”. But it was still good to hear Covey acknowledge this fact. And since our offense now heavily features the 2 (and sometimes 3) Tight End sets, this lessens the role of the WR even more in the offense. Having Vele, Parks, Solo, Dixon as well as the addition of Peppins is more than enough for an effective rotation when you might only have 2 of these WRs on the field at a given time. Covey also said that guys like Vele and Dixon are super talented.
My thought. Knowing all of the above, I would much rather see us use our excess scholarship(s) (we’ve saved for portal transfers) to load up on quality depth in the Secondary, DL, & OL. And I’d even rather see us bring in a really good punter or kicker versus another WR. I’m sure there are many on here who would disagree and that’s fine…but I’d love to hear what everyone thinks.
Good post. I agree.
We don’t need WR… if we had a covey type and a bunch of TEs we’d be fine.
Man, I’d sleep better if I knew we had SOME kind of deep threat. Not expecting our WR’s to do anything other than block takes away quite a bit of the field. It worked this year, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but it seems to me throwing at least one long completion a game would help keep the opposing defenses a little more honest.
We do, he is a body catcher which means while the db is making up the 5 yards he is beat by he can adjust and intercept the deflected ball.
Why wouldn’t we want GR? One reason is 1 year rentals could block better young talent from playing. Happened with Brewer and Rising as well as McKinney and Bishop. Would have happened with Bowen and Lloyd.
I don’t know much about GR, what does he give us that we don’t already have?
We might need a 1 year rental this year. We already got one in Diabate. I think the window for the Utes to make some noise nationally is now.
Win now is a valid reason. However, some young talent impact and win almost immediately (Lloyd, Jordan, Bishop, etc).
Bishop was injured… Lloyd was just the “other backer” in 2019… Jordan was special but with the benefit of hindsight who did he really take carries from? A couple of guys who couldn’t break the lineup at Tulane, Fresno St. or get out of the portal.
You stockpile talent where ever it comes from and the cream rises…
I went running today. Cold as f**k with head winds. Yet, a friend of mine shared a comment from Diabate saying how badass Utah is. Most of us have no idea what these guys are thinking.
Please share the link or how people can hear. We don’t need speak easies FFS.
So hows come 247 shows Akana and Johnson as 3 star recurits still a day after publishing articles they are now 4 star?
Enquiring minds want to know.
247 themselves have rated them as 4 stars, but the composite still shows 3 stars because that ranking takes in other recruit ranking sites. You can see that the 247 only rankings have them both as 4 stars.
Who knew? Thanks for the explanation.
Well, I knew. I’m kind of biased towards the composite rank because that’s what most news services are looking at. It’s awesome that they are adding stars on the different rating services (247, Rivals, ESPN, and now On3) but really 247’s composite ranks are certainly a very good standard to look at.
I believe that the same guy started Rivals, left and started 247, and has now left them and started On3. Really the 247 composite ranks, along with the best quality reporting, and the best user boards (Utezone) made 247 the top ranking service.
Yeah I never really paid much attention to the rating sites until maybe two years ago. It kind of fun to look back now and see who was or wasn’t highly rated and how that panned out for playing time. for instance the 4 4 stars from the 2021 barely, and I mean barely, saw the field, yet 3 of the 4 2020 4 stars, Ritchie, Fillinger and CP3 are total studs, (and the 4th Xavier Carlton could very well have been).
Guys who were down the list of star power who have had impact or the team are impressive over those two recruiting cycles:
Ty Jordan (RIP)
Faybian Marks
Kamo’i Latu
Cole Bishop
Johah Ellis
Not even bringing up the portal adds, Reid, Pledgre, Rising etc.. I get chub thinking about a defensive backfield of CP3, Ritchie, Bishop and Marks or whoever steps ups for the 4ths spot.
… has a 4 or 5-star recruit starting as their QB. None of these guys want to wait to start – so they transfer out to somewhere they can start immediately. We have lost two 4-star QB recruits during their freshman year.
It apparently doesn’t hurt their future NFL prospects to play for a lesser college team. Just look at Josh Allen, Jimmy G., Big Ben, and many others who did not play on a P5 team.
They might need “some” talent at WR though.
The problem will be depth. You may see a major drop-off from the starter as we did in the Rose Bowl. (Barnes was amazing considering he is a walk-on from Milford.)
I believe what you will see is a team go 6-0 and their QB goes down with a season-ending injury. Then they finish the season 1-5 because they don’t have the QB to get it done.
Hyperbole. Teams bring in one or two qb’s every year. The tranfer window realistically doesn’t open until November. Maybe if you get down to qb3 but as we have witnessed sometimes the “program guy” might have been the better choice anyway.
Plus, the walk-on played ahead of the 4 star transfer from Texas because decisions are based on performance not what 247 says when the live rounds start flying.
The Jets and Saints have QBs that played for mid-major programs too. Just sayin.
So does Buffalo
I was just going to say Zach Wilson made millions beating no name programs in 2020. GMs want to see physical attributes, athleticism and mechanics. They really don’t care if you beat Directional State 72-3 10 times a year.
I used to play on the same team as Elias Ballsteadt and Beau Rydalch (though he graduated a couple years ago). Ballsteadt was a few years younger than me, but he more than held his own against kids a few grades ahead of him. Beau was also really dominant in his middle/high school days.
I consider myself to be a pretty good basketball player, but I was nowhere near the level as these guys. I’ve played both of them one-on-one, and I don’t think I ever beat either of them. And what’s even crazier is that they both sit at the end of the bench for the Utes.
One time I also went and played some pick-up ball with some Snow College players, and even their talent and athleticism was just way above anything I had previously faced.
Sometimes when you watch on TV, it’s easy to forget how talented these guys are. But when you play against them in real life, you can see that these dudes are just monsters. I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort that these guys put into their craft, because I feel like I spent tons of hours playing and practicing basketball, but I could never imagine being at the level of skill that these guys are at.
I used to play pickup ball at the HYPER 3-4 nights a week in the early 2000s. Occasionally, guys from the team would come in, mostly post weight room activities, just to shoot. Sometimes, they would join a pick up game or two, not to play seriously, but really just to get a bit of a run in.
The player I saw most frequently was Bryant Markson. To reiterate, he would not try in these pickup games at all, would almost never shoot, and would definitely take it easy on you on defense. But on the rare occasion he decided to actually play (like if his team was getting killed and he wanted to even up the score a bit), there was really nothing anyone could do. He scored when he wanted. You didn’t score if he didn’t want you to. Granted, we weren’t the best basketball players in the world, but we were a bunch of guys that were high school athletes that still played several nights a week. He was just so obviously so much better than all of us that it was startling. And that’s not even really accounting for his physical gifts, which were substantial. He was just simply better than us at basketball, on top of being 6’6″ with great length, quickness, and athleticism.
I only remember Tim Frost playing pick up with us once. He just hung out by the three point line because there was literally no point to him going down low. Automatic two points.
So yeah, totally agree, and have experienced it first hand. D1 is a next level of talent.
Growing up I had a friend who was physically bigger and better than most anyone else. When we played pickup games, he would dominate if he wanted to (pretty much only letting you score when he was bored or just trying to be nice and could just score at will). The one Ward ball game he played in (before being disqualified) was coincidentally against my team. They beat us 107-7. He went on to play at Ohio State, but rarely played. It is insane how good high end D1 players are.
I’ve had the chance to run with some d-1 guys on the lacrosse field.
Trying to guard them was impossible. They’d just blow by you like you weren’t even there, they’re so fast. It brought to mind the top gun quote after the first hop.
“Where’d he go? Where’d who goooo!!!???
Does the transfer portal have rules similar to recruiting, i.e. visits, contacts? Are teams allowed to contact a player prior to their transfer announcement, or can say a team like USC cherry-pick the best players that say Wyoming or Colorado have developed? I think even the NFL does not let their teams contact or negotiate with other teams players and coaches while the season is ongoing.
This is the million-dollar question, Tarheel. It’s the wild west out there right now and even if there were rules in place (which I don’t know), who is going to enforce them? The NCAA is BROKEN and has been for years. I think the blue-bloods are going to really benefit from this era of free agency that college athletics has become.
Good question. I assume not more than one transfer per year and no mid year transfers. I assume schools can’t contact athletes not in the portal. With NIL can literally anyone contact an athlete about where they should go? Could it be that because there are no legal limits in regular law it becomes difficult for the NCAA to impose their own limits? Could total freedom of movement and pay for play at some point wreck athletics for all but a few teams? I don’t think pro sports can work without rules so I assume college athletics need some rules as well to survive.
I believe that the NCAA granted everyone a free transfer for 2020, however I believe that going forward a player may only transfer once with immediate eligibility while still an under-graduate. Then again as a graduate. I believe a second undergrad transfer would require sitting a year. That may slow the tidal wave we’re seeing now.
Utesbyfive is correct and by rule, a team is not allowed to contact a player before they enter the portal. We all know it happens though.
Rate your satisfaction: 2021 Utah Football season
Total Voters: 109
Loading ...
