Next @ 
Washington State – Sat 9/29 – 4pm – Pac-12 TV
The bye is over and Utah is ready to take on Washington State. The guys are joined by former Ute Steve Tate to offer his view point of the Utes as well as talk about his foundation HayesTough. Michael Preston from CougCenter.com also calls in to preview this upcoming game and give everyone a breakdown of the Washington Cougars.
Remember to check out HayesTough.org to learn more about the foundation and also to purchase Steve’s book 20 month legend:
Exactly. We’ve lost our minds. Our defense in #1 (or near to it in the nation), our special teams is still special and we have the same old offense we’ve always had. It sucks, but nothing to lose our minds over. We still are in a great place to win the South. People need to stop freaking out.
One of the few things I agree with you in. Crazy how doom and gloom people get after a loss to #10. Sure, Utah had every opportunity to win that game. It’s a long season. I haven’t written the Utes off yet.
It’s not just losing. It’s the way this team has looked so freaking inept on offense this year. Yes, we’ve pretty much sucked at offense for the past decade, but this is worse. I don’t see a way they can get better without making personnel changes and that’s not a guarantee.
Ignore all of the evidence didn’t you know that was a top ten team? They cause you to overlook NIU completely and game prep for them. Then you miss easy throws and catches all game consistently for four quarters stringing together one offensive drive all game.
Whew top ten Washington, Utah didn’t even see it coming.
Don’t you say a damn thing about the Stanford game to these mucks they might be a legitimate top ten after taking down Notre Dame.
Remember in 2014 when we were 3-0 riding into conference play on the heels of a big win at Michigan? Then we went up 21-0 in the first quarter against WSU. Then we blew it in the second half and lost. Lots of teeth gnashing back then like we’re experiencing now. Then the next week we went into LA and defeated a top 10 UCLA. I believe this team can right the ship.
I don’t think it was JUST the Washington game. We’ve watched some very bad offense for THREE GAMES. I have confidence it will improve, but not sure how much.
Basically 2 quarters of good offense against WSU then like maybe a quarter combined with the two other games. That is not good.
This team looks like it will have 3 or 4 more losses. The D can only do so much. Especially against PAC-12 offenses. I don’t see a cohesive offense. Expectations are Whit’s kryptonite. Sorry feeling pretty pessimistic right now.
Is this thread an opportunity to hate on the users as well as the team?! I’ll take it!
Hoping fans and team have their s**t together in Pullman. Pullman is Boise without the tropics. C’mon Utes, dammit.
I sure hope we win soon…
Only if Washington were a top 10 team.
Short version: S&P+ says we go 7-2 and win the south; Sagarin says we go 6-3 and SC finishes 7-2.
One thing I’ve been thinking about this week is how much I like Connelly’s S&P+ metric. There’s been a lot of talk on this site about whether statistics are meaningful or useful in any way. I would recommend reading this explanation of S&P+ (I’ve linked to this before) before you decide to disregard statistics. You can find the S&P+ rankings here. Connelly claims that S&P+ tends to hit between 51 and 54 percent against the Vegas spread. Not bad. BTW, S&P+ says we win this Saturday; this is the difference in whether we take the south, because SC is also predicted to finish 7-2, but we would hold the head to head tiebreaker.
For a brief version of the long explanation, S&P+ evaluates a team’s performance in what Connelly defines as the Five Factors of winning: efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers. These factors are weighted to reflect their relative importance in predicting wins; Connelly states in his explanation that efficiency is the single most important stat in creating wins. What is efficiency? It is based on ‘success rate’ which Connelly defines thusly:
First downs: gaining at least 50 percent of necessary yardage (usually 5 yards) is successful.
Second downs: gaining at least 70 percent of necessary yardage is successful.
Third or fourth downs: gaining at least 100 percent of necessary yardage is successful.
There’s more to S&P+, but in looking at the breakdown in how each team is ranked, this system makes intuitive sense. For example, Utah as the #1 defense as determined by S&P+; Alabama has the #1 offense.
What do you guys think? Are there better analytics out there that anyone knows about?
I do not know, but thumbs up for this post and especially for use of the word ‘thusly’.
Yeah me too. Shakeitsugaree sounds like Shakespeare. Or like Star at around 24, where I think we are..
A quick side question. Is your name “shake it sugaree” or “shake its ugaree”.
Not that either makes any sense to me…just curious.
I approve this message, despite current empirical evidence and logic.
I never knew that he holds a combine record for fastest 10 yard split. That explains a whole heckuva lot regarding his uncanny ability to close on the ball.
The breakdown of his stats at Utah was also eye popping.
143 tackles
10 sacks
22 tfl
23 pass deflections
18 int
9 ff
6 fr
10 total TDs
those 18 picks came amongst multiple position changes, and while playing the majority of his senior year at Cornerback where teams actively avoided throwing the ball to the guy he was covering. He also shut down a future NFL superstar in Megatron in a bowl game. He meant as much to our offense as he did the defense.
Won’t know for sure until Saturday. My guess is it will help. The biggest question in my mind is did it help enough to make a significant difference. Can we triple or quadruple our offensive touchdown scoring by making minor changes? Sad when tripling means going from one TD on average per game to three.
It didn’t help the fanbase to keep dwelling on a dismal oh-fensive performance. I hope the team took one week to look at what is being done incorrectly in the fundamentals, fixed that as best as possible, then started working on the WSU game plan.
Betting lines are set to encourage betting.
this is totally unsubstantiated and objectively wrong. Lines are set to protect themselves from the only people who have a legitimate shot long term to take money from the books. If they are setting lines to “encourage betting” they arent doing this, and this is the ONLY way a book can put themselves at risk. A inaccurate line represents a massive liability to the small subset of gamblers that actually have a way to beat books over a large sample size (usually math)
Lines are set based on getting 50% betting on both sides. They’re not meant as a predictor of the outcome, though they seem to do that often.
so if the line moves that way, it must be to encourage betting on WSU; too much money on the Utes. Somebody has faith.
Big time Ute fan at work literally thinks we’re gonna lose this game by 3 TD’s this week. Says he’s done after their last game! Holy hell people. Really? After one game. We didn’t really expect to win that game did we? Let’s get some positive vibes going for these boys this week. Utes for the win!
I think it may be a one score game. But I think we go 3-6 again and that’s not acceptable.
He’s going to go back to rooting for BYU because they have a lofty Ranking of #20!
and then he’ll be a USU fan after they lose to UW.
I can relate to how he is feeling. It’s not just the “one” game. It’s the crapy performance from the previous two that just reinforced our fears that the offense sucks. Not to mention that the likelihood of seeing an improvement, that actually gives them a fighting chance with their upcoming games, is very unlikely.
I’ll probably won’t watch the game in order to save my family from being around an A-hole. I just get too invested in my Utes and when they lose I take it pretty hard. Sometimes I think it’s just easier to walk away rather than truly root for my team.
I love my Utes and am probably TOO invested at this point. Do I WANT to believe that we’re going to turn things around so we can keep up in a shootout? HELL YES.
But that’s my heart talking.
My head says that there are too many things to fix right now and even if we do fix them, is the basic offensive philosophy one that can win a game against Wazzou, Oregon, USC, Stanford, Arizona St & Colorado? Sorry, but no. Not based on what I’ve seen the past couple of games.
That said, I like my crow with a side of asparagus. I’ll happily eat that meal.
I think the downers recognize that the cronic kwhitt problems that everyone claimed had been fixed, are in fact not fixed and omnipresent.
This is kwhitt’s cross to bear. Like 12 years.
Utah might win this weekend, but we all know it will be with an ugly, knife fight effort. That’s good enough for 6-7 wins and a low level bowl win. But I think I speak for most Ute fans that it’s time for a change. I’m willing to take the risk.
Please don’t try to speak for most Ute fans, I doubt most Ute fans have been calling for Whits head for the last 12 seasons, I doubt most are calling for it now.
I defended them after NIU. Against Washington who allegedly has a better defense Utah had chances and just totally s**t the bed.
Yep, definitely not the product of one bad game. It’s the product of having read this same book over and over. One offensive touchdown in two games! The best receiving corps we’ve had in a long time…
Add to that the officiating and the replay booth and the oddball targeting enforcement and I can see why people are over it.
ESPN
Bonagura: Cheez-It Bowl:
Sherman: Sun Bowl:
– I’ll take the more difficult game, in Texas
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24773646/college-football-bowl-projections-week-4
USA TODAY: Frist Responder Bowl Utah -v- FSU (Dec-26, Cotton Bowl – same as last year)
– tough matchup considering what FSU did to Northern Illinois
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2018/09/25/bowl-projections-penn-state-holds-college-football-playoff-spot/1418771002/
SI: Cheez-It Bowl, Phoenix
– Ok – Plan on going, at least enjoying the sun!
https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/09/24/bowl-projections-matchups-schedule-playoff-rankings
Sporting News: Las Vegas Bowl –
-tough matchup – packed stadium!! – can’t wait!
http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/college-football-2018-19-bowl-projections-week-5-rankings-playoff-picks-penn-state-ohio-state-alabama-georgia/14mhi6sl752bz1y0hofoo0o46o
I don’t think I can handle it if my team goes to the Cheez-It Bowl.
Agreed – but only slightly worse than the ‘chicken bowl’ in Frisco
As of today the Foster Farms Bowl is now the Redbox Bowl. And no, that is not a joke.
haha,
Is Redbox still a thing that people actually use now with renting/streaming videos so readily available these days? I can’t imagine that Redbox is still going strong. You would think they would spend their money on other things.
they have their own streaming service as well. Also, I can watch Jurassic World now vs months from now (not that I necessarily want to because it seems like its a crap movie)
or you could just rent it on Amazon, fandangonow, xfinity on demand …
Cheaper to go to the box.
Holy hell was that frustrating. A couple of my thoughts:
The 3rd drive of the game was what Utah’s offense should look like; A heavy dose of Moss, a few quick passes, and Huntley extending drives with his legs (on passing downs). We still need to put together some semblence of a down field passing game, but this offense shouldn’t rely on it with Huntley at QB.
Nacua was pretty damn good in the 2nd quarter – he is the possession receiver for this offense.
Not getting 3 pts to end the half was big – not sure about the decision for Huntely to throw into essentially double coverage – have to play smarter.
The P12 needs to adopt the NBA model for reviews (especially targeting), where all reviews are done by a centralized officiating office off-site. I can accept the call on Blair (even if I don’t agree with it) because he did use part of the crown of his helmet, but the call against Fotu was f**king terrible (and absolutely changed the game).
Guidry played really well, Blackmon not so much.
2nd and short situations; either give the ball to Moss, or run play-action downfield. I can’t understand why Taylor has such a penchant for calling 7 yard outs when we get in these situations.
I feel a bit better after re-watching this game – Utah isn’t as bad as they have looked, a lot of self inflicted issues! IMO, here is where the Utes need to improve to get back on track:
1) Stop turning the ball over! Hard to win many games when you are -6 in TO margin through 3 games.
2) Drops are killing drives (and part of this is due to Huntley rifling every pass) – catch the damn ball. Need better play from the WRs, especially guys like Mariner and Simpkins.
3) Need someone to develop as teh deep ball threat. Not something we should be hucking up there every other play, but we NEED it to be a threat.
4) We need a better balance on offense. We can’t run the ball 70 percent of the time like we have in the past, we have seen how that works out, even with great RBs like Booker and Williams. Taylor has taken the opposite approach – we just need to meet in the middle.
5) Continued improvement from the Oline. Better effort against the Huskies, but more improvement needed.
I just hope they get it figured out this weekend before it is too late.
One other note: I wish we got another chance at Browning. Dude isn’t that good, and my god is he a little bitch.
We will
Well played!
You think they win the North? No way in hell I would put it as more likely than Utah winning the south at this point. Stanford and Oregon will hang L’s on them.
Is the defense as good as my memory wants me to believe?
Run defense was just okay – Gaskins got to the 2nd level a lot, but they are legit.
I wonder if this was a byproduct of trying to tweak the game plan to get to Browning. What do you think?
We absolutely made an effort to pressure Browning. That is his MO; makes mistakes when he is pressured. However, there were still a few gap assignments that they missed, and LBs not getting off of blocks. Overall, Utah’s defense played a really solid game.
We won’t be able to do the same thing against Wazzu this weekend, their QB gets the ball out quick! Need a huge game from our front 4 to get pressure on the QB.
Hard to get sacks on Washington State. The QB does quick drops and passes. Can be done, but not easy.
The flip side is I’m not sure that SC has the best secondary. They’ve allowed a lot of passing TD’s. I like to think ours is better, we did pretty well against Browning, and while Minshew might be a better QB, I’m not sure if their receivers are better.
I came away very impressed with Wazzu’s WRs after watching USC game. I think this is a game that Tyrone Smith could shine in matching up with their big WR Patmon. Their WR group has a good mix of size and speed, as well as a few good route runners like Sweet. HUGE test for our defense.
I’d be inclined to agree with that if we hadn’t had problems with Gaskin in the past. He’s just a good running back, and he’s hard to stop in the backfield because you can’t even see where he is until you are past the offensive line.
Two holds on the edges sprung him. They called one late on Utah sooo not trying to whine about officiating still but they sucked.
Loading ...
