Fire Jim Harding? Ludwig’s play calling/passing concepts?

[junkemail]

I’m not sure how you all feel but for almost as long as I can remember, the common weakest link in the chain has been the offensive line. In this day and age of college football with analytics and how sophisticated offenses are, defense is secondary to winning the big games -> if you can’t score more than your opponent, you won’t win the games that matter and this has been Utah’s Kryptonite!

Yes, the WR coaching wasn’t great for a while and QB play hasn’t always been ideal like last year. However, the point still holds -> O-Line play has continued to be sub-par and unacceptable. I can’t remember the last time Whitt has fired a coach mid season and/or who would replace Harding for the rest of the season, but I sure hope Harding’s seat is hot. One more performance where the O-Line gets absolutely blown up and I think he needs to go.

Another question worth asking: at what point does Ludwig take more criticism for his play calling? When he wants to air it out, he’s had success before (2008 Sugar Bowl)… But it seems like all of last year and this year he’s not making the right calls when they matter most. Going for it on 4th and 2 and then calling an off-tackle run from a shotgun formation…? What could go wrong? TDS set the edge the entire night but couldn’t stop anything between the tackles – either run between the tackles or do a sweep, nothing in between!

Many of Ludwig’s passing concepts are quite archaic and not conducive for large passing numbers. I wouldn’t mind an NFL/Blue Blood WR coach or Passing Game Coordinator (like Joe Brady) to be the next OC and have Whitt give him a looser leash for play calling…

If I were Kyle Whittingham, I would probably move on from Jim Harding at the end of the year and go grab a guy like T.J. woods from UNLV (who worked with Andy Ludwig previously at Wisconsin). After next year’s season, if Ludwig still can’t get play calling/passing concepts worked out, then it might be time for him to go. Thoughts?

On to the next game!

[Ute Dub]

Utah averaged more yards per play than BYU on both rushing and passing. 7.6 to 4.8 rushing and 5.7 to 5.0 passing. The Achilles heal was the two turnovers and 3rd down conversion. Teams know Utah is going to run between the tackles on 3rd and short and goal line, please run play action from under center and mix it up. The shotgun snap where the RB has to wait is terrible. Oline played well enough to win the game. D-line gave up 250 yards rushing and zero sacks. D-line got pushed around and let BYU control and shorten the game once we dug ourselves a hole with the two turnovers. Usually the more physical team wins the turnover battle. 

[noneyadb]

The two turnovers were on the first two drives and the D only allowed 3pts. Stop spewing this narrative that the turnovers were so detrimental.

Khyiris Tonga flashbacks https://t.co/vUPiqfsYpx

— Sporty (@SportyMcSports) September 13, 2021

Harding deserves as much heat as possible.

[Ute Dub]

Bull s**t. Utah had 25 less plays because of those turnovers and it wore the defense down over the course of the game. Time of posession was 35 to 25. Get a f**king clue.   How is that twitter video play on Harding and not on Ludwig?

[UteThunder]

No, we had 25 less plays because we couldn’t convert on 3rd down and we couldn’t stop them from converting on 3rd down. In other words, we couldn’t sustsain drives and they could.

[Rick]

The TOs were not detrimental to points.   That was obvious.  But I would say that the turnovers created a mindset and a substitution pattern for most of the rest of the game that made a conservative team even more conservative.  That is a very bad thing when you are playing a hungry team that has lost 9 straight to you and in front of 60,000+ crazed zoob fans.  While you can say the turnovers did minimal scoreboard damage I would say you are wrong in that it changed our entire mindset and strategy which had a massive impact on the final score.

[Ute2]

The vanilla playcalling…
Our game plan was based more on usc’s film room than BYU.

[GameForAnyFuss]

People are overthinking this. BYU-Provo Campus won because they wanted it more. After all the coaching, video analysis, nutrition, strength training, etc…desire and heart will still make the difference.

[BD]

Completely agree. While there are lots of issues and things to fix that the team did wrong in the game, the biggest coaching and team failure is that they didn’t want it bad enough. I don’t know if the coaches treated this like Weber State, or that they thought they would just show up and win, or whatever, but they didn’t have fire and passion.