I have 1 question and 1 question only regarding the spring game

[chinngiskhaan]

Is our offensive line still hot garbage or nah? Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Not hot garbage, but currently not good enough to win the PAC. 

[Ute Dub]

How do you know this from the Spring game in which multiple starters were held out?

[cjd1]

∆∆ This

[Anonymous]

Hopefully I’m proven wrong this season, but here is the reality- Year after year, we have terrible pass protection, and the PFF numbers don’t lie. Our “depth and talent” at that position won’t overcome the underlying problem- Harding. Last year, the story was a young line dealing with Covid, so I’ll let that pass. But let’s take a look at the 2019 team, our best team of the decade. Huntley and Moss were able to cover up one of the worst pass protections in the nation. Out of 395 pass-block snaps, we gave up 119 pressures. This ranks 6th worst in all of D-1 football (2019 Oregon ranked 16th best in this statistic, and we all saw what happened in the title game). If you don’t want to look at the data, then do the eye test and look at our pass highlights, then do the same for teams that have won the PAC. Again, I hope i’m wrong because I want to win the PAC, but it’s consistently the weakest link and I have no reason to believe it’s changed this season. 

[Ute Dub]

Harding is NOT the issue. The coaches know it. The experts know it. Well educated Ute fans know it. You don’t seem to understand or know it, but you can probably do some homework and figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, my child, but Harding is on the hot seat this season. 

[Ute Dub]

What’s your source?

[Anonymous]

The last 5 years of PFF data for our O-Line. Sign up and look for yourself. Or, just read and accept the reality of my previous post. 

[Ute Dub]

No source. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Dm’ed

[Ute2]

Still not down for the Harding hate.

injuries and transfers and resultant youth did a number to that unit over the last few years. 

context is everything and people calling for coaches heads need to have A lot of well educated context(They often don’t).

 

 

 

[Duhwayne]

Archangel, is that like being assistant to the regional manager? 😉

[Anonymous]

What’s a regional manager? Is that like a return missionary?

[Duhwayne]

Elder Michael with the earth jokes. He’s in the Zone.

[Utah5410]

No. Not at all. 4 of them have been HM or ALL PAC – 12 at some point. And Krump
(Who didn’t play) is a beast. I think our Ol is one of our strongest units.

[chinngiskhaan]

They have been terrible at pass pro for years… IDGAS what awards they were given, did they pass block well or no?

[UteBacker]

I could be wrong here, but I think most of our starting O-line was held out. They did an interview with Nick Ford who was only watching the game today.

[UtesRule]

We kinda have a pretty solid D-Line!

[Charlie]

The ones that they let play were divided between teams. We were looking at twos and threes playing against the D twos and threes that are pretty much oneAs and oneBs. The D had an edge.

[Trailgoat]

Until proven otherwise, Utah’s Oline is weak against the better defenses in the P12 that load the line of scrimmage. No secret Utah wants to be a run first offense with no effective pass game when the run game does not work and they are forced to pass. It’s been the general theme even with Ludwig as OC. Hope we see something different this season.

[MDUte]

From what I saw today, I’m optimistic that Brewer is the difference we’ve all been waiting for. I believe he gives us a real passing threat so teams can’t just stack the box against us. Others have pointed to our WRs being the problem but I disagree. Great QB play can make good WRs look amazing. Our OL has continued to improve and is deeper than I can ever remember. Brewer can get the ball out quickly, scramble to extend plays, and make plays either with his arm or with his feet. All of this makes up for OL mistakes here and there, thus lifting the overall play of our OL. Admittedly, I’m drinking and enjoying the koolaid right now…but it sure tastes good! Go Utes!

[SkinyUte]

Still TBD, I think.

The OL wasn’t great today (Brewer would have been murdered a couple times if he hadn’t been wearing the ‘no-touchie’ jersey), but it was mostly backups so…

I think we still don’t have any idea.

[pedro]

IDK, I caught Brewer back there a few times reading a book.  The red team OL looks very solid.  

[Duhwayne]

I watched a couple highlight reels from 2019 and Huntley was amazing at hip shots. So many scores were after being flushed. Hopefully we’re better this year.

[Ute Dub]

You’re like the whiny mom at my sons HS game who yells, “Come on O-Line” after the QB held the ball in the pocket for 8 seconds and then took a sack.

[pedro]

This 100%.  Look at what Lisk did with the same OL that Bentley did not.  Right up to and including making the OL look better (or worse if you intitials are JB).  There are 6 other guys out there on every play that can change how the OL looks to the average fan.  But then some fans aren’t quite up to the level they think the OL should be at either.  

[Ute Dub]

Yeah. This chinngskhan never played a down of football, especially not on the line on either side of the ball. His superficial and uneducated comments make me feel tired all over my body. In 2019 Utah’s O-line was #1 in the league in rushing, which counts for something, but they can’t control certain things like Huntley not getting rid of the ball or not understanding the blitz and how to attack it.

[noneyadb]

I want to see where Utah’s oline was ranked #1 in the league in 2019.

[Ute Dub]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/stats/team/_/season/2019/stat/rushing/group/9

My post said #1 in rushing. Here you go.

[Onlyu]

A couple years ago I felt like we had 6 total O-lineman that could play at this level. We didn’t have any room for error or injuries and as the season went on the grind of a P5 season wore us down. The Pac12 champ game(s) were probably the result (plus some significant injuries elsewhere).

Year before last we got exposed twice, by Oregon and SC, but let’s not kid ourselves and act like they don’t have top 15 talent on the field or that we were fully healthy (with little playable depth) so I’m not sure that’s exactly an indictment.

Today we have 8-10 guys who are P5 ready. Do we have the 5 star, no doubt dominator? Probably not but we have size, experience, athleticism and a pretty talented group of young guys who are only gonna get better and top to bottom we’ve never had more talent in that room.

We’ve been excellent in run blocking for a while now and need to continue to make improvements in pass pro but I like where we’re at heading into the Fall. We have to stay healthy and heal up in a couple of spots but the starting 5 should be really solid.

You didn’t have your C (Ford) or your LT (Kump)…both those guys will play in the NFL. You also didn’t have multi year starter – Umana, in the lineup today. There were multiple walk-on’s who started on the line today including a converted DT in Togiai playing there for the first time as a Ute.

Point is you can’t really take much from a game like today except that we have a clear collection of overall talent. It is obvious the program has taken another step forward in depth and ability. Plenty of things to work on. Adding the speed guy at WR via the portal, add Parks and Calvert. Keep working with guys like Bishop, Vele, JQJ, etc and we’re gonna have some fun man!

[chinngiskhaan]

So we can’t tell because our two best guys were not playing, and the others were split into two teams. Got it. Is our OL still going to be dominated by the elite teams of CFB when it comes to pass blocking? We have no clue.