Funny how you would say that after Fano was embarrassed on that early RedZone trip. Moeia was lost half the game.
30 some odd yards rushing for an oline with a high PFF rushing? Yeah keep defending it. Hilarious. I have two eyes don’t need to wait for the grade at all.
Zero way to argue that the online as a whole hasn’t been absolute garbage! Individual players have been good, like Fano, but the collective has been BAD. Talent is there, so it must be the coaching.
fully agree. Really, the only complaint I can come up with for Harding is that he’s not having the same success recruiting interior linemen as he is with tackles. Unless Garcia and Alderman can move inside, I’m not sure they will see the field until Fano & Lomu leave or get hurt.
Tackles get a lot of credit but elite guards are really hard to find. They need to be big enough to be road graders in the run game taking on 300-350 pound DT’s. They also need to be agile enough to pull on one play while releasing and getting to the second level to get to an LB or safety who is much quicker on the next play. In pass pro, tackles get by with their length against smaller DE’s but have a good idea of who they are blocking on any play. Guards have to be smart enough to recognize stunts and know when to pass their guy off so that they can pick up a blitzer coming free which is where Utah’s IOL has failed the last two years.
Don’t agree. Fano and Lomu at the tackles have been elite. Bernard is going to rush for 1000 yards you don’t that without good OL play.
Early in the season when Wilson was playing teams were bringing 8 or 9 guys on every play. No Oline is gonna stop that. It was on Ludwig to adjust play calling and he wasn’t.
Harding is a good coach and Utah needs to do whatever they have to with NIL to keep Fano and Lomu. Bookend Tackles that good are rare.
I think our linebacker play this season has been very poor. Bad reads, poor tackling, guessing instead of reading, etc. I think the injuries have also taken their toll on the athleticism of this position group. They just look slow and it is not just Barton. However, almost 100% of the fault on this teams is on the offensive side of the ball and I think the offensive line is the only group that gets a bit of a pass. All other positions groups on the offensive side have all underperformed tremendously. As for the OL, you can at least say that Fano and Lomu have been very good. The rest have been mixed. I think Micah Bernard has given us his all and that is all you can ask for but I am not sold on anyone else.
Brutal ending Saturday night. It’s taken a few days to recover. So many chances to put the game away (landing on recoverable fumbles, Calhoun’s near pick, any second half points). But still very proud the way they fought and our fans.
The program seems to be at a critical crossroad right now. Five game losing streak aside, Harlan’s post game rant, few arrogant “we will run the Big 12” fans, and social media smear campaign by our friends down south, we may have hit rock bottom in terms of our national perception.
How do we right the ship? Some thoughts:
1. Harlan: Not sure how we recover from a PR standpoint with Harlan still in his position.
2. Coaching: I love Whit. At 65 and three years left on his contract, I hope he commits to staying long enough to turn things around or step down sooner rather than later to let Scalley hire the new OC. Hard to imagine going back to the rotating OCs of the past.
3. Embrace the Big 12: No question this has been a gut punch landing. Consolation prize. But in reality, this conference will provide us with the best path forward to CFP appearances. It would have become harder to compete in the NIL space with the likes of Oregon and USC going forward. We have gotten off to a terrible start in so many ways.
4. Deal with TDS: This to me has been the biggest negative of the last two years- landing in the same conference. The rivalry is not fun anymore. Winning the game is more of a relief rather than an accomplishment. The Pac 12 era landed us key Utah county recruits (Chase Hansen, Covey, Fano brothers etc) that we may be harder to get going forward. We have to now spend a lot of energy making sure we regain our edge.
urinalists aren’t any smarter than the rest of us, especially the sports versions.
Assuming Whitt comes back, all anyone will see is:
1. the usual great D played in 2024 with most of the starters returning. It still boggles my mind that with as bad as the O has been this year, if Utah had scored exactly 25 points in every game they’d be 8-1 and control their own destiny.
2. two QB’s who have gotten needed experience this year
3. an Oline led by Fano & Lomu
4. worse than average injury luck the last 2 years
they’ll just assume that Whitt will get it back to 9-3 which is all you need to be top 15 so I was lowballing.
This is exactly my feelings. To me the only players that are not seniors that I would be totally bummed if they left are Calhoun, Garcia, Lomu, both Fanos, Snowden (sometimes), Tao Johnson, Tanuvasa, Barton (if he can get his speed back), Woods (if he can actually play), Bouwmeester, Togiai, and Pepa. Notice I have not put in a single WR or TE because those two positions groups, aside from Singer who has no more eligibility, have grossly underperformed. You can blame the QB but I have focused a ton of my time watching them and they get zero separation, whiff on blocks, and have not contributed jack squat to special teams. I would put Glover on here but why is he now on a 2-3 snap count per game? Glover averaged 8.3 yards per carry against Houston BUT he only got 4 attempts. FOUR! What in the hell are the coaches actually watching on the field? Did he get hurt?
So, that is 13 players from an 85 man roster. 14 if you add Glover back in. I think we may be having a Coach Prime level of transfers in and out this off season and I am OK with that at this point. This team has stunk for two years in a row and I am not all that convinced it was all due to injuries. I have said here and elsewhere numerous times but this team is not very athletic and lacks speed on the edges on both sides of the ball. Teams like Arizona, ASU, TCU, and no Houston make us look like we are playing in quicksand. I watched the Boise State vs. UNLV game last Friday night and both of those teams are MUCH faster than us overall. Prove me wrong and don’t give me the game speed vs. track speed argument because all I am seeing is game speed in the game of football.
When Wilson was benched, he was standing by himself off to the side watching the game at first. Later on he stood with the team on the sideline.
Glover and Mitchell were seating on the bench by themselves during our last drive while everyone was standing on the sideline watching our offense. Fano came and told them to stand with the team and show supports.
Saw two players got injured, one looked like a lineman who was on crutches with a knee brace and another maybe a receiver in an arm sling. They didn’t have their jerseys on and I couldn’t tell who they were. Other teammates were checking on them.
We had a good showing from fans. It was funny chatting with the UH fans. They were complaing about the same thing we have been such as going for 4th or offense play callings. It’s like we were trying to compete which team is worse.
I have been a loyal Ute fan since I was 10 years old back in about 1975. I have seen a lot of Ute football teams over the years and some have been very talented and some, not so much. I have watched this year’s team closely all season both in person and on TV. I have heard all of the pre-season hype about this team being one of Whitt’s best and all that. What I have seen with my own two eyes is nothing close to that.
I see an overall lack of team speed in crucial positions that demand it. Our starting linebackers and defensive ends have all lost a step due to pretty severe leg injuries and some were multiple injuries. We did NOT replace the talent levels of our two safeties from last year who went into the league. Our corner and interior DL play has been decent but not amazing.
On offense, we all know about the QB play but I am more concerned with what I see at WR and TE. I have focused on our WR play since our opener and I just do not see a lot of speed and separation. I think Singer has great hands but neither he, nor Money Parks, are blowing folks doors off with their speed. You can toss in the bomb by Wilson to Parks on Saturday but that was not a play that he absolutely smoked his coverage. At TE, I feel like Kuithe has lost more than a step or two and our TE blocking is not good, especially on pass plays where we are keeping a TE in for max protection.
Add to all of this some pretty mediocre special teams play and you get yourself a 4-3 team. I am not sure a change at OC can fix the speed issue. We look slow and we play slow. If that is because the opponent knows our plays and can anticipate, then maybe a change at OC will fix some of that but you can’t fix lack of speed. I think all of the injuries we have had to star players like Barton, Reid, Kuithe, Fillenger, Fano, etc. have taken their toll. Just my two cents.
