with Whittingham. There, I said it.
We are moving in the right direction. We moved from the top of the bottom third to bottom of the top third in 5 years. Whitt built the defense first, no big surprise here. Then special teams.
I think he knew talent was only going to trickle in once we took the step up. Our recruiting bears that out. We were pulling in players with very few BCS/P5 offers. It makes sense, just because you hang a Pac-12 shingle off your roof does not mean kids are going to drop their offers from the likes of ASU and UCLA to come to Utah. I think most of us thought recruiting was gong to skyrocket. We also thought the week in week out against BCS/P5s was bulls**t. Wrong on both counts.
Winning in this conference is tough. Last year we were 3-3 last 6 games. This year is shaping up the same way if we beat Colorado. We still don’t have the depth to get us to the top, that’s why I think Whitt kept robbing Peter to pay Paul. Here’s a good example, Butler-Bird. Why keep him on the offensive side when the QB isn’t skilled enough to survey the field or throw a guy open? He can make a much bigger contribution to winning on the defensive side.
But, we have quietly been building a hell of an offensive line. We have a handful of promising redshirt freshmen lineman along with returning all of our starters next year sans Aiono. I don’t think this is an accident or a fluke. I think it was the next step in the building plan.
I’m not down on our receiving corp either. We get our tight ends back (Moeai, Fakailoatonga) and wide out Patrick. We return all the other receivers except Scott. Also, instead of being totally screwed at QB, like we were in 2011,12 & 13, we’re in much better shape.
I don’t think we take a step back next year, we probably stand pat, which would be pretty damned impressive.
Go Utes, beat the Buffs.
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