Behind the times

[tarheelute]

After watching both the Stanford and Utah games I wonder, for Whittingham, and Shaw (in many respects), whether their college philosophies (tough defense/run oriented offense) have fallen behind the times. Rule changes, focused on player safety, changes for good reasons, have created an game where tough-minded players and defenses, do not succeed, particularly against offensive oriented teams. Whittingham, and Shaw, are great coaches and great people, coaches that for all intensive purposes we should commended. But the game has changed, and they have not, particularly Whittingham.

A couple of more observations, my two cents.
1. I am not surprised the Utes had a tough time as players, and as a team, with their final offensive drive – stress and penalties go hand in hand.
2. Ute defensive players are not soft, however pass rushing and toughness on the edges, both hallmarks of past Ute teams, are undermined, specifically, by the rule changes.

[sweetgrass]

on the flip side what has an offensive guru like Mike Leach ever done? He hasn’t come close to beating a balanced UW team.

[tarheelute]

Agreed Sweetgrass- but perhaps a more balance philosophy for the Utes, promised in the past, but not delivered.

But for my part, Whittingham’s teams was, and are, not prepared for those last drives, like we saw last Saturday. And I have sweated out too many games, with the Ute’s “prevent defense”, when offensive minded teams head down the field on their final drive.

[sweetgrass]

I wish I had the answer.  We’ve had hints of success against Oregon in 2015 and UW last year, but those offensive performances seem like outliers.  I honetstly believe we ran the ball too much against Wazzu on Saturday.

[tarheelute]

The answer? My point with adding Stanford into my blog, was I had thought Utah was attempting to emulate Stanford. But after Saturday; not so sure. The Ute’s would be happy to have Stanford’s success, but how to we get there, and then what.

What is the Ute identity? – no clue.

[highlandute7]

Too bad we can’t hire Leach as our OC. Is there someone from his coaching tree that is out there on on WSU staff?  Imagine what kind of combination we would have with our defense and a WSU/TTU kind of offense. 

[UtMtBiker]

Based on the assumption that we are a though run oriented offense?  Have you been watching the games the last 2 years?  We are far from that, but I think we should go back.  

I believe we are behind the times only because we are trying to change to this very strange west-coast-spread- hybrid offensive thing that Troy Taylor has dreamed up. We were a good team in 14,15,16 playing a more power style of offense. 

Our defense is solid.  Our offense is a mess.  I hate seeing offensive lineman in a 2 point stance on 3rd and 2. Like wtf kind of message are you sending to the other team?  

[highlandute7]

I would generally agree with you that we need to go back to what we did with Chow in 2012. Whitt wouldn’t have hired TT if he didn’t want some kind of hybrid spread offense. If Whitt didn’t stick with it after Chow left, not sure he would be committed to going back to it now. Besides, who do you bring in to run a west-coast, power run offense? Grimes?

Look at WSU. Their QB Minshew is a grad transfer who is from East Carolina and a junior college before that. Hopefully Tuttle will be the qb we need but I don’t think he is playing this year, but, he is the type of qb you need to have run first offense that sets up the pass nicely. If Tuttle is who they want, TT will need to change their offense in a big way as I don’t think or see Tuttle as a read-option QB in the spread. 

I referenced WSU only as an example of ‘what if’ type of thing. Of course I don’t think its possible to believe it is possible to hire an air-raid OC and have it work tomorrow. But, WSU seems to plug in QB after QB from no where and they still ave 40 plus points. Luke Falk was a walk-on.

I just wish we had an offense to compliment our defense, but that is way too much to ask based on the last 10 years.