Barnes and Thursday night

[AlohaUte]

Two other thoughts I’ve had thinking about the Utes and last night.

1. I’m in on Barnes. No, he’s not Rising, but very few QB’s are, but I’m comfortable with him leading the offense until Rising is ready. I think had he been the primary QB all night (aside from a few wildcat calls for Johnson) he and the offense would have had a better rhythm and won by a little more. I think the QB switching really slowed our offense down. That said, I still want Nate in occasionally on wildcat plays. He’s so dynamic with his feet.

2. I LOVE Thursday night games to start the season and we should try to do it every single year. Make it a Utah tradition against a solid team. It gives them more time to prepare for week 2 and work out kinks and it for we fans it makes the weekend so much less stressful as our game is already over.

[Utah]

I disagree. I’d rather go with Johnson.

Look at Barnes’ drives:

1 play, 70 yards. Great play by Barnes. Would have been there (probably more so) with Johnson, as the defense probably bites harder on the play action to start the game if Johnson was in.

7 plays, 36 yards, punt.

3 plays, 4 yards. punt.

7 plays, 14 yards, 3 points.

5 plays, 23 yards, punt.

3 plays, 11 yards, TD.

3 plays, -10 yards, punt.

Look at Johnson:

10 plays, 80 yards – TD

3 plays, 6 yards – punt

3 plays, -5 yards, punt.

7 plays, 38 yards, missed FG.

The offense moved the ball a lot better when Johnson was in, and even Barnes’ two TD’s weren’t really any testament to Barnes. It was a great play call to start the game and the other was off a turnover, and Johnson showed that he could have scored from 11 yards out.

Barnes is safe and I don’t say that in a good way.

If I’m the coaches, I do the same thing against Baylor that I did vs Florida, but with a little more Johnson. Then I have Johnson play the whole game against Weber St (unless you want to give Rising a couple drives) and then hope Rising is ready by UCLA.

But we know what Barnes is, and it isn’t good enough.

[AlohaUte]

The problem is Johnson can’t throw. We won’t win anything if he can’t do that.

[22Ute22]

Or maybe he can throw but is nervous because of Whitt screaming about turnovers.

[2008 National Champ]

that’s a distinction without a difference

[2008 National Champ]

So Johnson gets credit for Florida having two players with the same #?

[RedUte14]

i think the coaching staff is somewhere inbetween both of these.

[EagleMountainUte]

That was apparent. They loved to play the middle ground.