“Colorado…”

[UteFanatic]

Guys, I’m still baffled CU beat UW.  CU pretty much shut UW down and easily controlled the game.  What the hell is happening?  Has CU significantly improved or has UW completely imploded this year?  Is it both?  I’m honestly less surprised by ASU’s win over Oregon than I am with CU’s win over UW.  Oregon showed signs of weakness this year and I always thought they were a little overrated.

It looks like Leviska Shenault went all “Michael Pittman” on UW during a few plays. We need to shut him down, he is very much a game-changing athlete.

I know the narrative around here is “don’t worry we’ll win” and “this team is different”.  But I think CU is a dangerous team that would love to become bowl eligible and spoil our special season.  (No chance that could happen, right!?)

Maybe I’m being ridiculous but 2011 was such a terrible experience that it has been permanently burned into my psyche as a Utah fan.  It’s kind of crazy that this year’s game against CU is almost exactly like 2011 (except the stakes are even higher). Win and we go to the P12 championship game (and possibly the goddamn playoff!!!).  Lose and we fall COMPLETELY out of the national spotlight and will end our season in bowl game nobody cares about.

I think Utah will win.  They are just so good this year.  We finally have an offense.  Our defense is elite.  But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous!

[GameForAnyFuss]

What’s happening is everybody in the PAC12 has a WTF loss. Everybody.

Utah -> USC
USC -> BYU-Provo
Oregon -> ASU
ASU -> UCLA

And finally….

Washington -> Colorad9

Don’t read too much into a single game. Colorad9 beating Washington says no more about Colorad9 than Utah losing to USC says about Utah. Weird things happen in one-off games.

[Central Coast Ute]

Washington also lost to Cal and Stanford. They have more than one WTF loss this year.

[UteFanatic]

Very true. It also diminishes our win against them, which sucks.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Lots of parity in this league.

[utefansince79]

A lot of teams have WTF wins.   Never saw ASU going off for 400 yards passing and 31 points against the Ducks.  

 

 

 

[Utah]

USC is never a WTF loss. First, Moss was hurt. We lost by 7. After Moss went down we went into USC’s redzone four times: a fumble at the goal line and three FG’s. I’d bet if Moss is healthy we win that game.  

USC’s problem this year isn’t that they are bad, it is that they schedule too hard of a schedule. Look at their losses:

@BYU – starting a true freshman in his first game on the road. Why would any team who doesn’t have the baggage that Utah has agree to go to LES to play them? I don’t get it. 

@UW – UW was supposed to be the best team in the P12. 

@ #16 ND

vs top 10 Oregon. 

So, out of their 4 losses, three were to ranked teams and one was on the road with a true freshman making his first start ever vs a team whose whole season depends on beating you. 

There isn’t a bad loss there. 

[PlainsUte]

But that means Utah is due for a WTF loss?

[Utah]

Nevermind. USC is a WTF loss. lol. 

Good point. 

[EagleMountainUte]

USC is a wtf loss. Mainly because the Blackmon and the rest of the DBs have never had that awful of a game since then. 

[Atlas]

I think Colorado benefited from beating Stanford (confidence-wise), playing at home, and getting a bye week to get healthy and prepare for UW. This is not the awful Buffs team that beat us inexplicably in 2011. However, this is also not the mediocre 7-4 Utes team that lost that game. We are 10-1 and are formidable on both sides of the ball. I think we win this one handily.

That said, Mel Tucker is doing the right things in Boulder. They’re already out-recruiting us and building a respectable, tough program there. In the coming years, this will not be as easy of a win and a real rivalry might blossom.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Any team that can beat Washington is a team we should take seriously!  Besides, we’ve been beaten by a bad Colorado team before (2011), and this is a better one than that.  They’ve beaten us as many times as we’d beaten UWa, and this year, we both beat UWa.  Colorado has my attention, and my respect.  

[Utah]

Nobody believes this, but Petersen is in an area he’s never been before: Playing with nothing to play for. 

Look, there are few coaches who can get their team up for one game better than Petersen. But week in, week out? He almost always falters. Even at Boise St, they’d have one game, very early in the season, they had to get up for. They were just better than everyone else on their schedule in the WAC. Then a bowl game. 

Now, he has 3-5 games a year you have to be ready for or you will lose. And he struggles in situations where you have to coach every week. 

2014: Stanford, Cal, Oregon, ASU, Colorado, UCLA, Arizona: 2-5. 

2015: Cal, USC, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona, Utah, ASU: 2-5.

2016: They played 3 tough games: Stanford, USC, Utah. Their three games around those games: Arizona (3 wins), Stanford (10 wins), Oregon (4 wins). Cal (5 wins), USC (10 wins), ASU (5 wins). Oregon State (4 wins), Utah (9 wins), Cal (5 wins). So, in his best year ever, he never had back to back games he could lose. 

2017: One tough stretch (Oregon, Stanford, Utah) and two losses. No excuse for the first loss. Loss one: Cal (5 wins), ASU (6 wins), UCLA (5 wins). No excuse for that loss. Loss two: Oregon (7 wins), Stanford (9 wins), Utah (7 wins). Semi-tough stretch, he loses. 

2018: One tough stretch: Oregon (9 wins), Colorado (5 wins), California (7 wins), Stanford (9 wins). Not even that tough of a stretch.  2-2.

When he has back to back games he could lose, he is 8-13. 

So, he hits 2019 and they have nothing to play for. Already bowl eligble, can’t win the north, they are done. We know he struggles when he plays back to back tough games (not elite games, just games vs 6+ win teams, he is 8-13) and you add in they have no shot at the north, no shot at a good bowl game, no shot at anything. 

And it shows. 

Petersen is not a bad coach, not at all. 

BUT he is so overrated. 

[UteFanatic]

That’s an interesting point about Petersen, I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he is just a bad motivator when the team doesn’t really have anything left to play for.

[Utah]

I think people totally devalue (except for the SEC) the week in/week out argument. Look at Alabama: 

They open the year with 5 easy games then a bye week. Then their first “tough” game in Texas A&M. So, before their first ranked opponent they have decent game, scrimmage, decent, scrimmage, decent game then bye week before A&M. Then after? Tennessee and Arkansas, two terrible games then a bye week. Then LSU, another bad SEC team, FCS then Auburn. 

They don’t play two teams they can lose to in a row. They do this every year. 

LSU: FCS then Texas. So scrimmage then tough game. Two decent games then bye then easy game before Florida. Then easy game then Auburn then bye week. Then Alabama then three easy games. No two week “tough” stretch. 

Georgia: Three scrimmages then Notre Dame. Bye week then three easy games (which they lost one of them). Bye week then Florida, decent game, Auburn, Texas A&M and GT. And what happened when they had a tough stretch (Florida, Missouri, Auburn, A&M)? They almost lost. 

Compare that to USC this year: Stanford, @BYU, Utah, @UW, Notre Dame. 5 straight games vs teams they can lose to. 

It’s nuts. The PAC-12 needs to schedule more like the SEC and less like USC. 

[Utah Jr.]

I agree. It makes no sense to schedule like that. The Pac-12 really needs to get its stuff together and start actually planning a reasonable schedule for its teams.

[Utah Jr.]

I agree. It makes no sense to have a schedule like we do. Whoever is coming up with the Pac-12’s schedules is going to have to fix theirselves majorly.

[Utah Jr.]

h

[Great1Ute]

Honestly, if there is a silver lining to Colorado beating Oregon it is that there is no way Utah will underestimate Colorado now.  The Buffs will have the Utes entire focus.  No looking ahead to the PAC12 championship game for 3/4s of the game like we did last year.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

CU beat UWa; not Ore.  Ore routed CU 45-3 last month.