My thoughts on the game

[chinngiskhaan]

Coaching: Top three coaching performance from Whitt and his staff. A Masterclass in coaching by everyone on that staff. Unbelievable. Yes, Oregon has a lot of dudes out with injury and banged up, but we’ve been dealing with that crap all season as well. Bottom line is Whitt did everything right this week, and I’m sure he’ll take absolutely zero credit. Ludwig also called a nearly perfect game tonight. I thought Scalley got a little predictable in the third quarter blitzing a ton of guys when he probably shouldn’t have. We were getting decent enough pressure without selling out on the blitz… but I’m spitting hairs there. The defense played great.  MAJOR props to whoever figured out the punting issue as well. I’m assuming it was Shah. Good for him if so.

Whoever had the idea to use our tight ends to block #5 needs to be given a raise. They completely took him out of the game.

QB: Rising was extremely shaky early on, but settled down and made some huge throws. The game could have been very different if a few of his bad throws got picked off. He did a great job leading the offense and running the ball though.

RB: Thomas’s ability to find the endzone is just ridiculous. That 3 and long in the redzone where he ran it in for a TD blew my mind. Gutsy play call, gutsy run. Bernard, Pledger, and Curry all ran well also.

WR: Dixon and Covey both had huge plays. Not many targets to the WR group tonight, but they certainly did their job.

TE: GREAT JOB blocking, and a few great catches from Kuithe as well. 

OL: HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL! These guys have gotten sooooo much better throughout the year. This was the biggest test of the year and they passed with flying colors. Olaseni is just so much better than he was at the beginning of the year. Nick Ford is a phenomenal leader. He’s going to do great things on and off the football field.

DL: the two Tafus (Tafua and Tafuna)had great games. Everyone else played great as well. 

LB: A laughed so hard when the announcers hadn’t even finished talking about how great Lloyd is, then he absolutely DESTROYS their RB. Don’t ask me how he completely stopped him in his tracks coming from the angle he did, but he did. One of the best hits I’ve ever seen in a football game.

DB: Bishop is Scalley/Weddle/Hansen material fellas. He is really damned good at football. People talked up Nate Ritchie endlessly. This dude is waaaay better than Nate, and Nate is going to do good things for us. He already has the body to play safety at a P5 level. Phillips got beat once or twice, but he also had a huge PBU at a critical moment. Mckinney played great, I hope Davis is okay. Great game from these guys as well.

ST: That punt return is an all time great play for our program. It personifies everything that Kyle Whittingham has brought to this program. Great kids, great execution. Ostrich sized Juevos. Is it to early to give Covey the Head Coach in waiting waiting title? (I put waiting twice for a reason BTW) Reddings kicks were all right down the middle, nice to see. The adjustment to the punt blocking scheme seems odd, but it worked… so yay!

GREAT GAME!

[UtesRock]

We matched up well against Oregon and the statistics were spot on.  Our O-line blocking has really improved since SDSU,and TE blocking was perfect.  I one weakness is the secondary, but they played well in the most crucial instances.  We still are giving up to many third and long.  

[chinngiskhaan]

Yes, I think the third and long failures are mostly due to play calling. We blitzed everyone a few times in a row and got burned on third and long.

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