After a sleep game thoughts.

[EagleMountainUte]

Watched more of the post game. Thought it was cool to see TT being interviewed. Is this a change?? Whitt is allowing more access to the media now with his assistants?  Whitts post game on Pac12 was fun. This was a fun win, for a warm-up game it was great. 

Defensively what problems could you see?  Freshman QB that I brought up before the game looked very much like a freshman FCS QB pagainst Utah. He got the TD on a short field and that was pretty much the only negative defensively all night. Anae hype train being a little tarnished from the penalties but Utah played vanilla and made Schramm look like a damn fool. 

 

Special teams was average just like Whitt said. Punt coverage wasn’t great didn’t give Covey much field to work with. The Wishnowsky juke was AWESOME!!  You put something on film that opponents need to prep for. Wishnowsky is kicking more like an NFL punter. Gay booted some great kickoffs I think. Covey will take one to the house this year I guarantee it. Turnover was ugly but again coverage sucked. 

 

Offensively ok biggest takeaways and I don’t mean the actual times WSU got the ball from Utah. Utah has some weapons all over the amount of times the ball got spread around was SICK! Moss didn’t even look like he was trying and busted one 86 yards. His vision is better and he hits the hole quickly. Penalties? Cleanest game I have seen from Utah for a long time. Can’t remember a game being that clean. Usually Utah has around 1/4 of their actual yards in penalties. No drive killers from stupid mistakes. For three quarters Utah blew the air out of a team who had a lot of momentum and made them look silly. The improvement from fall camp to game one is pretty much non existent. The improvement from game one to two???!! Yeah this offense is going to be good with more installs. Huntley needs a little more touch on his passes I think. Backup QB?? An area of concern for me to start the season. Shelley is dynamic and I hope he sees the field more. Oline is now my primary concern going forward. Barton was great but they looked better than 2017 game one.

[EagleMountainUte]

TLDR version: GO UTES!! Is it September 8th yet??

[Central Coast Ute]

The only year that the assistants weren’t allowed to speak with the media was when Dave Christiansen was here. I hear interviews with the coaches all the time.

[EagleMountainUte]

Yeah I remember that just this is the first time in post game that I can remember.  Maybe it was because the PAC Network did more of a feaux Gameday type thing made me notice it. 

[KiYi-Ute]

Great post, I appreciate your thoughts and opinions, @battlegroundute.

They call them tune-up games for a reason. There is a lot to work on (turnovers, special teams, dropped balls), but we also saw a lot of good things last night.

We’ve got a lot of film to watch and a lot to improve. But, we also have a few extra days to do it. I’m sure we’re all eager to see how we look in the first quarter against NIU. That should be the biggest indicator of what kind of team we have this year. If the offense is sluggish and sputters again, we might have cause for concern. If they come and execute right off the bat on the road — well then, we might just have something we can work with.

[EagleMountainUte]

A thought I had related to the term “tune-up”, this was valuable I think last night. The negatives are better for the coaches than just plowing into WSU all game. FCS teams I have said this all off season are just not valuable for the most part. If it was a 69-0 game I mean do you even learn anything about this team? I like the  adversity they had to face and in game correction with no panic happening on the fly. 

I don’t like FCS teams. I think they should be banned from P5 play, if you create a 8 game playoff with auto qualifiers. You can not allow Bama to play sisters of northern Bama College in November.  Now if you want to create a “preaseason” gate game for the fans and to raise money for these lesser programs I am fine with that. Make it part of fall camp but overall you don’t learn much from these games. 

[eyesonU]

No drive killing penalties but WR’s had some drops that had they been converted, would have sustained some drives.  The Nacua one sticks out to me mainly.  Right through his hands on a 3rd down forcing a punt.  That actually may have been the fake punt now that I think about it.  But he still has to pull that one down.

 

I think they will get there as a group though.  As was mentioned below, some played very well. 

 

I’m with you on the Oline.  They sleepwalked through that first quarter.  Not getting any push and being the reason for Huntley’s int in my opinion.  It doesnt matter if we have the best skill guys in the world if they don’t have time or room to operate.  They seemed to play better in the second half, but this could be this teams achilles heel if they don’t get it figured out. 

[EagleMountainUte]

Initially I thought it was the Oline bumping Huntley. It was actually Jake Jackson who got pushed into Huntley. I almost don’t like Huntley throwing that ball. The LB read it all of the way no way it gets through to his guy. Huntley was careful after that INT maybe a little too careful against WSU he can do that. 

[eyesonU]

I didn’t notice that.  Only saw it live and haven’t had a chance to re-watch the game yet.  That makes me feel a bit better but they still have some things to work on obviously.

[EagleMountainUte]

The early rush attempts between the tackles is most concerning. Once they started to run it outside it was just the team speed of Utah overwhelming WSU. TT adjusted nicely after the first two series went no where.