After re-watching the game on tape, as opposed to live, a couple of thoughts

[pedro]

First, on TV it didn’t look as bad as it felt live.  It still was bad though.

2nd, I counted at least 25 Freshman and Sophmores that played, most a fair amount.  This does not include special teams.  

Many of those young guys made mistakes, but they also showed signs of greatness.  I’m excited to see these guys get better each game.  

[Trailgoat]

Considering talent level, experience, and their level of play at this point, Utes need to play an almost mistake free game to beat USC. Clock burning drives, no turnovers, and TDs in the redzone will be key. Utes turn the ball over on a bunch of 3 and outs and TOs, they will lose. I know USC is in a funk, but if they control offensive possesions, blended with all of their mistakes they have so many offensive weapons to score points quickly if Utah gives them time of possesion.

The bye week comes at a good time with injuries and the beyond sad situation their in. Only down side to the bye week is game time experience which this team needs with so many young players on the field. Crazy to think WSU was Rising’s first full game as a starting QB. Rising’s going to be really good once he settles in. Oline and defense made big progress last week. Pledger and Jackson are a welcome addition. Pledger could very well go off with big yardage in the USC game. I have a feeling these guys will be ready to go in SoCal. Go Utes!

[alUmnUs]

I missed most of the game due to my son’s little league game and by the time I got home only caught CPIII’s pick 6 and the PAC12 post-game show (the new “live from the field” format is a nice wrinkle).

Anyway, during the post-game show Nigel Burton was talking about how badly Utah has been playing football. IIRC, he said something along the lines of Utah’s play looking like an “anti-Utah.” He pointed out how Utah is still competitive in their games despite not playing very well and then said “Imagine [how good Utah would be] if this team just played average?”

 

[SantaVaca]

I agree.  I don’t know if was the heat or what but watching the game live, I thought the Utes looked as bad as I’ve ever seen them.  But after I got home and rewatched the game on TV, I feel a lot better.

Our defense played well.  When I watched the game live, I was frustrated that we didn’t seem to have much pressure on the QB, but then I saw that we had 8 sacks so obviously I was wrong.  Also, the DBs played much better than I originally thought as well.  It wasn’t perfect but it was definitely good enough if our offense can just figure out how to hold on to the ball.

Our QB and receiver situation is still bad.  I belive in Rising but he didn’t look good.  I don’t know if that’s all because of Oline sucks or if it’s a combination between a Freshman QB, RBs that fumble every time they touch the ball, receivers who can’t get open, and our pourous Oline.  

I don’t see this team getting to 6 wins if they can’t figure out their offensive problems.  My guess is 5-7 this year with wins over Arizona, Colorado, and 1 other flukey win.  Knowing how the PAC12 usually plays out, that random win will probably be against Oregon.

 

[Rick]

We were in Cover 2 a lot early on in the game and I think it was Scalley just trying to protect the new corner that had to replace Broughton.  Once we switched out of that and went with man and some blitz packages our defense really took over the game.  Against Cover 2 WSU had their way over the middle of the field any time they wanted because their was zero pass rush from our front four.  I just don’t think Tafua and Fillinger are very dominant pass rushers like we have had in the past with the likes of Orchard, Anea or Pita T.