I thought this was an interesting statistic

[Wilson’s Mustache]

Ever wondered if penalties correlate to success? Not necessarily. ECU and UConn are tied for 4th fewest (28 flags) in FBS and have a combined one conference win. Ohio State, Utah, and UNC are all in the Top 25 and rank 103rd or worse in total penalties.

 
Even so I’d really like to see Utah cut down on the penalties. Not sure we can beat Washington if we don’t play a relatively clean game

ESPN

[Anonymous]

Zona and UCLA game was pretty one sided for their calls. Zona was Interfering on all of our receivers until it was finally called to end the half. UCLA was flagged twice. Just ridiculous. 

It is the PAC 12 refs. 

[Wilson’s Mustache]

It would be interesting to know how many of these penalties are O-line related (chops, holding, false starts) while they were still getting gelled after so much turnover. 

[alUmnUs]

Surprised an Urban team is that heavily penalized.

Here’s a more disturbing stat:

Utah Football has never won a designated Ute Proud game :/

Of all things to worry about this week, ^^^ this is what has me most worried.

[Wilson’s Mustache]

Last year ASU was the Ute Proud game and we won

[alUmnUs]

Oh good! I was remembering UCLA. Maybe I was confusing it with the Arizona day game back in 2014.

[Utah]

Whitt has said time and time again that he doesn’t want to be the least penalized team. Penalties have little correlation to success. 

When you are aggressive and force the issue, penalties will be called. BUT, if you mantain that aggression, the flags will die down. It’s the whole Jerry Sloan mantra, “If I grab and hold you every play, you won’t call it every play.”

Then penalties that DO kill you are the just dumb penalties. The illegal blocks to the back, the false start penalties, the offsides penalties, the personal foul penalties. 

I’m ok with the rest. 

Urban started this, I do believe. Urban wants (I say that loosely) to be one of the most penalized teams. Because that shows that you are out there grabbing, hitting, flying around and making plays happen. 

[popbirch]

Urbans teams are almost always some of the most heavily penalized teams. When he was here it was the same way. Like Utah said its a fine line between aggressive play and penalties. Urbans would much rather have tight coverage every play and a possible penalty than loose coverage. Same with oline play, his teams get called for holding much more than other teams but in his mind the risk/benefit analysis is in favor of saying if you are beat at the line go ahead and hold rather than let the guy get past you. Either way the play would likely result in a loss might as well take the chance that the hold doesn’t get called.

Also I agree the pac12 refs seem to be very whimsical in their calling of games.

[Wilson’s Mustache]

I would also like to point out that penalties do not equate to dirty play as some of the downy brownies that cheer for the team down south would like you to believe.

You could have 1000 false start penalties and not a single dirty play.

[SalUteopia]

Agree with Whitt’s philosophy. Some penalties are a byproduct of aggression, and those are fine, but need to cut down on the “dumb” penalties.