How do we stop Love?

[ProudUte]

I don’t know that we can.  But, I think we can win if we prevent him from getting the big chunk runs that he has been racking up every week.  I think we need to try to contain him.  If he gets 5-8 yard runs – that may be okay.  If he starts breaking runs for 30+ yards – we will be in trouble IMO.  He is an amzaing running back and if we keep him to less than 200 yards, we could win this game.  We also need to be careful about stacking the box and leaving us open to a big throw over the top.

I would love to hold Love to less than 100 yards, but I don’t think that will happen or should be our focus.  On offense, we need to get some big plays.  If Williams is at QB (I think he will be), I suspect we will try throwing deep multiple times.  I don’t see us getting much on the ground against these guys.

Go Utes!!!

 

[Tony (admin)]

You can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him. LOL

[KJU]

Does anyone know Tonya Harding?

[UM4G]

I’m worried about him as well. Really hope Fitts, Anae, and Hansen are all healthy and ready to go, we’ll need their A game to help contain Love.

Love is good, I suspect he’ll still get at least 150 yards, but I think his stats are somewhat inflated from playing teams with poor rush defense:

Rice – #35 Rush Defense

USC – #67 Rush Defense

SDSU – #48 Rush Defense

UCLA – #126 Rush Defense

ASU – #97 Rush Defense

http://www.cfbstats.com/2017/leader/national/team/defense/split01/category01/sort01.html

Utah’s rush defense looks stellar across all games, even just FBS games, but as soon you look at their stats vs P5 teams, they drop to #85 or somewhere around there, but that’s due to the Arizona game, and their entire offense is predicated on the run. I think we’ll be fine against Love though, because Arizona isn’t just one guy getting all those yards. I think/hope that our Utes will match up much better against a single threat such as Love. It’ll be a good test, should tell us how we can expect them to do against Ronald Jones, Myles Gaskin, Royce Freeman, and Phillip Lindsey.

Agree about limiting the big plays, he’ll get his yards, the defense just has to make sure it’s mostly between the 20’s. But I think the ground game will be useful here, Stanford is ranked #96 in rush defense, so Moss should be able to get something going.

[Utah]

It’s not fair to only look at P5 with Utah. First, Arizona is a damn good rushing team. And we held them to a significantly less yards.  

And all other teams have played a lot of G5 so far as well. 

Know this:

We are by FAR the best run defense Stanford has faced. And Love is BY FAR the best RB we’ve faced. 

Should be fun. 

[UM4G]

Right, which is why I said our defense looks stellar across all games, and then explained away the Arizona game. The point I was trying to make is that the rush defense may not be as great as it looks now, but also Love may not be as great as he looks now, most likely it’s somewhere in the middle for both sides. We can’t expect to hold Love to only 87 yards, just like they can’t expect to get 273 yards rushing.

[Utahute72]

I have to think our defense is better than either CAL or ASU.

[ironman1315]

I say we do the Utah State v. Fuamatumafala approach.

[RavenousUte]

Have Chase Hansen spy him… and nobody but him.  Love isn’t dangerous until he gets in the back field.  More of a speed back than power back if you look at Play charts. Like 2, 3, 2, 50, 2, 58, 4 etc.