Just watched Kincaid’s highlights against USC

[chinngiskhaan]

One thing stuck out almost as much as Kincaid’s ridiculous ability to catch the football.

It seemed like Kincaid was almost never the most open guy out there, and Cam repeatedly threw him the ball. He needs to develop that kind of chemistry with ALL his receivers, not just one. There were times when he threw underneath to a blanketed kincaid when there was a receiver just beyond him who was wide open.

Here’s hoping That Rising develops connections with other receivers besides Kuithe this offseason.

[prestitute]

The others need to hang onto the ball though. The trust in Kincaid was earned as he rarely missed.

Thinking of the UCLA game, dropped balls like Yasmin’s (if I remember correctly) on one of the first drives literally took points off the board. With slightly more reliable receivers outside of Kincaid, we likely would have been undefeated last year in the regular season.

[2008 National Champ]

WR wasn’t the reason for the Florida loss. Blame craptacular tackling, not scoring on 4 running plays from 1st and goal from the 8 in the 3rd quarter, a brutal 2 point failure and Rising’s pick.

WR wasn’t the reason for the UCLA loss.

Not sure they were to blame for Oregon either. Any of about 60 guys makes one more play and perhaps Utah pulls that one out.

[The Miami Ute]

You can blame the Florida loss on this simple stat: six trips inside the Red Zone but only 13 points scored. On the other hand, Florida cashed in for 22 points on only three Red Zone trips.

[2008 National Champ]

Maybe I’m misreading the play-by-play but I’ve got Utah at 23 points from the red zone. 3 TD’s, 1 FG in 6 trips.

Utah ended up tied 68h in Red Zone scoring % (61-73, .836) so your point stands that they need to be more efficient in the red zone. When your offense is so dependent on red zone scoring (53 of 73 TD’s, .726), being able to finish was the difference between 9-3 and 11-1 (1 for 3 RZ against Oregon with a missed FG).

[FtheY]

Don’t quote me on the exact number, but saw a stat a while back that Kincaid caught something like 129/131 passes in his time at Utah. If that’s true, that’s crazy good. 

Love Kuithe and Yassmin but they aren’t Kincaids level of consistent catching yet. Hope they can improve on their catch rates this year. 

Receivers need sure hands too. Thought I heard we had a lot of drops in spring ball.

Trejan is a 7 confidence level crystal ball to Utah on 247. Hope we get him. Full trust in Whitt on this one. 

[SOWhat]

Don’t agree with your take on Kethie, he was every bit as good as Kincade in the 2021 season.

[FtheY]

I think he got the Herbie award after the 2021 season so that’s a fair point. 

Anecdotally, I remember a few drops last season before he was hurt. Would have to check the stats to confirm. 

We need a 2021 season or better out of him this year. 

[Charlie]

Yes, when Kuithe went down, Kincaid became the featured TE in pass patterns. When Kuithe comes back he will return to that spot. When they played together, Kuithe had the edge, however, Kincaid progressed a great deal over his two years here. I expect the TE group to not miss a beat. Kuithe will be the primary route runner, Yassmin will be the second (like we had in ’21, like we had at the end of last year), and Suguturaga will be the FB out of the TE position (like Fotheringham in ’21, like Kendall last year). Hopefully, one of the young TEs or McClain step up and give the group another wrinkle. Kuithe spent the spring ’22 with the WRs and we really did not get to see the result of that before he went down. No reason to be anything but excited about the group coming up. We waited a long time to see the physical play of rugby Yassmin, I think it arrived in the last half last year and could become a Pac 12 FS nightmare.

I think the WR group will take a step forward from last year and with the TEs work the middle more like we did in ’21

[The Miami Ute]

Kuithe was the better receiver of the two…I really hesitate to call him a TE… he’s more of a H-Back in my opinion. Anyways, there’s a reason why Kuithe was the starter and Kincaid the backup. Kuithe, from my anecdotal point of view, was faster and a threat to occasionally take plays to the house. Kincaid’s more of a “move the chains” type of receiver.

[Utesby1]

Not many “move the chains” type guys get drafted in the first round. But I agree he was behind Kuithe in the tight-end pecking order until Brant went down.

[Charlie]

Actually, too many moving parts for me to know. Both players were on good improvement planes. Use of the TE was evolving in the Utah offense. QB play was refining that part of the play. They only played together for a year which was Kincaid’s first at Utah. Without being at practice and seeing the isolation of the single variable of the player running drills it a guess. Neither player is a typical TE. My guess is the TE part of the offense will continue this year much like last year. It will be when Kuithe and Yassmin move on in ’24 that Freddie will be redeveloping the TE group.

The TEs also worked well with Covey to move the chains. With Covey gone last year Utah kept that going better than I expected. If the slot receiver returns to the level Covey brought cover in the middle of the field will get more complicated. I have high hopes for our TE this year, go Utes.

[Ute Dub]

If Bridges commits, you can throw your idea out th window.