From beginning to end this season was an incredible journey, we began as probably the worst football team I’ve even seen Utah produce in my time as a fan, listless, slow, and unable to execute seemingly anything. We beat Weber State by sheer star power and lost to BYU in a contest most would agree that we got outcoached in by a mile, that’s a very bad sign, no offense to Sitake.
Then in the third game something changed, we were still bad, but at points we were playing football. The effort wasn’t enough and we got beat by a G5. But something about it made me smile. The team, despite every reason not to, was clawing it’s way back.
I knew we had to shape up in a big way because USC was next and if there was going to be hope for us to win the south (at this point the raw math of it was my only impetus for saying “we could win the south”, this team had not shown any reason to believe that was even a remote possibility) we had to win this game. Not only did we show up we started to look good doing it, we put together a game. The team was still growing and would be for weeks but it was at this point that it was apparent that we were not the same team that was playing weeks prior. I was floored by the transformation.
Weeks rolled on and we were winning with style, our guys were having fun and we seemed to be getting better and better. We were scoring points like I’ve never seen a Utah team do. Our defense was never stellar, or really even decent by our standards, but scoring points has a funny way of producing wins, so it didn’t really matter.
Our team showed amazing resiliency and delivered the fans the Rose Bowl with two dazzling roast duck BBQs. And in that Rose Bowl they played their hearts out, a losing effort, but only just. That’s all you can ever ask from a group. When you’re out there giving it your best it shows. I’ll take this loss over a thousand 2019 Alamo bowls where it was clear that the team had absolutely no interest in participating. This change in attitude speaks volumes for the heart of our 2021 team and I couldn’t be more proud of them. A Utah man am I, Go Utes.
On another note I’d like to throw something out there that I have been thinking about for about two months now, trying to find a way to rationalize it away but I cannot. In fact, the idea has only become more supported the more football we played this season, including last night. That is: This spectacular season and our success in it is basically an indictment of our team’s/coaching/Whittingham’s defense first, safe possession offense philosophy. We just enjoyed our most successful year in the PAC, went to the Rose Bowl and came up just short of smacking Ohio State in the mouth. All in a year where frankly our defense probably reached about 60% of a normal Utah defense’s capability. It didn’t even matter because the offense was 200% of a normal Utah Offense. Is football as an evolving game simply more optimally played with productive, big-play offense, as a priority?
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