Florida, moving on.

[Trailgoat]

Pains me to admit I re-watched the Florida game. Definitely a different view the second time around minus the family screaming, food and drinks flying. A lot of what we all know. Not in any order of importance. Overall, the P12 is Utah’s to lose. Having USC, OSU, Stanford, and UA at home is huge. Biggest challenge may be UCLA and WSU on the road. Oregon may be checked out by the end of the season and Colorado is not good.

As covered many times on the board, several key plays and coaching decisions truly the difference in close games like this one. Napier did not use coach speak in saying in so many words, Florida got away with one. 

Overall both teams had good game plans. Opposing P12 teams are going to learn a lot from the Florida tape. There is no outside or deep pass threat outside the hash marks from Utah and Florida schemed accordingly. As it’s been for the past five years, athletic teams have no problem shutting down Utah’s WRs, add slot receiver to the list losing Covery. I think only one pass was thrown to Parks in the slot position. 

To be fair, Florida did not play a great game either. Typical of two very good teams playing each other first game of the season. Utah just made more critical execution and coaching mistakes in the end.

Positives:

I don’t think at this point Utah will face a better complete team or more hostile enviornment in the P12. Like this game, Utah will be their worst enemy if/when they lose a game in the P12. 

Oline looked solid for a first game and won’t face a better defense in the P12. Good push up front against a good Dline.

TEs, RBs, Rising off to a good start. Rising is amazing and will continue to improve. Obviously missed on the INT and a few other short throws. Not his best game, but still solid. All the TEs played as usual and will continue to improve posing tough match ups against the P12.

Special teams did their job. Good to see consistent execution all around.

Safeties, and CBs-strength of the defense: Giving up only 168 yards is a good outing for a first game like this.

WR blocking is very good keeping the CBs occupied which seems to be their only talent at this point.

Offensive game plan for the most part- Utah executes on the Tavion trip and a couple of other play, Utes win by a couple of scores. Nice to see Curry get reps, hope to see more of him. Glover will get reps next week.

 

Negatives:

Coaching: Watching a lot of college football and following a few other teams closing over the years, Utah under KW by far has too many coaching decisions during the course of close games impacting the outcome. Every coach has their kryptonite, coaching decisions in close games against good teams is KWs. KW seems to lack situational awareness at times in these big games. Leave it that.

WR and slot as pass catchers: all the WR hype needs to stop. Lack of WR and SR talent is an area that may hurt Utah in key games.  Begining to wonder if Bumphis is making a difference? A lot of big talk with little action.

Front seven: Utah has not had a sack since the Championship game last season. Too many missed tackles. Counted three that impacted the game outcome. Dline still a young group that will only get better.

LBs, Not sold on Reid, I hope Calvert or some one else steps up. Reid looked very unathletic and slow with his reads IMO. Barton will get there, can’t expect a Freshman in his first game to make a big impact. Diabate getting acclimated to the system, he will be solid. I’m sure a lot of nerves playing in agains his old team. Missed some tackles.

Overall great game experience. In the end, bad coaching decisions, exexcution on some key plays, missed tackles the difference in a game Utah gave away multiple times. 

Moving on to the SUU scrimmage. Go Utes!

 

 

[chinngiskhaan]

I think your point about the WR group is the thing that bothers me the most about the Florida game. Ever since Droppy Dres we’ve heard that we are finally going to have a true #1 WR… and every time we have heard that since then, and including then, it’s been a flat out lie, with the exception of Carrington, who was great at getting open, but wasn’t a great deep threat.

No matter how hard Vele works, there is a reason he wasn’t a big time recruit out of high school. If he was an elite level athlete, he wouldn’t have been walking on at Utah. 

I’m still not sold on Bumphis as a coach. The WRs have done better in certain areas, but we haven’t seen an increase in production from them at all (though that is in part due to an increase in production for TEs).

[krindor]

Hard to read too much into Bumphis yet. He might not have immediately turned just-a-guy WR into studs, but the real question is if he can get the higher end types onto the team.

Which is… tough to assess. He’s been here for just over a year which means half of the 2022 recruiting cycle and the 2023 cycle.

WR recruits in that time are
Ryan Peppins (2022, but immediate transfer)
Chris Reed (2022)
Tiquan Gilmore (2022)
Tao Johnson (2022 ATH, now at WR for Utah)
Kainoa Carvalho (2023)

That’s not a lot of his recruits that he’s had to work with – only two. Which serves both as an excuse and an indictment of him, though it’s hard to blame him for Peppins. But the name of the game is recruiting. If hiring you or me as a position coach would bring in two top 100 recruits a year, it’d likely be worth it, despite me having no real scheme knowledge.

[chinngiskhaan]

That is, as usual, very fair analysis from you. I think recruiting has been the biggest thing Bumphis appears to be struggling with, though Tao Johnson is listed as a 4 star on 247, and he is a long and fast wide receiver. While it’s nice that he has 4 stars, it feels like star ratings are becoming inflated, and are more a reflection of who has offered you than your actual potential (if there is a difference between those two).

I think it is clear that the receivers have done a better job of catching the ball when targeted. Drops were a huge issue under the previous two WR coaches… Though there are a lot of factors that go into dropping a pass that don’t necessarily have anything to do with who is catching the ball.

[salty-ute]

Tao is a 3* on 247

[krindor]

He’s a 3* by composite, a 4* in the rankings from 247 specifically.

I tend to just go by the composite, otherwise you end up picking and choosing and calling lots of people 4*s

[fosternano]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see our top 3 receptions yards going to the two TE’s and Bernard this season.

Utah just doesn’t have a stand out WR, granted it’s early in the season. Hopefully one of them steps up.