My top 5 Utah football fears

[UteDuke]

1. NIL and conference realignment changes will destroy the appeal of college football. The sport will lose its relatability within 3 years.
2. The PAC 12 will continue its fall from grace and either be broken up or have no negotiating power going into the next round of media deals.
3. Harding will be retained and the O-line deficiencies will continue to handicap this team and significantly curtail its potential.
4. This year’s team will persist in uninspired play and waste a season that talent-wise had great potential.
5. The improvement made at the end of the SDSU game was a result more of the prevent defense played by SDSU than any better play by Utah and next week’s game will be more torture.

These are only my personal thoughts and are more to promote discussion than anything else.

[Larry B]

Something I’m going to add but won’t be a popular opinion here: BYU goes undefeated and becomes the new hot item in the state of Utah.

[Tednab]

Win Utah state and USC they will .. they set themselves up good

[UteDuke]

A valid concern. Nothing to do with TDS made my top 5 list though because I really don’t care to spend the time thinking about them. Also, regardless of their success this season I still like our situation more than theirs.

[rbmw263]

eh, ill let them sustain success before i worry. Even then the honor code still exists.

Utah football wont become unsuccessful because byu succeeds. any impact is marginal. 

[Ute2]

These are all interesting.

1. I too worry about this. I love college football. I don’t love semi pro AAA football with cool bands. I too am really worried they’re killing the golden goose.

2. I think as long as USC and other top couple programs hang around, the p12 will command a competitive value. Not top, but not falling out of p5 orbit either. I trust kliavkoff and I think this alliance will be a pretty big deal if they stick it out. Now if usc and oregon and crew leave, the pac 12 and big 12 will form the ‘middle 2’ on between the G5 and P3

3. I’m generally a coach defender. But hard to defend Harding today. I’m still hoping we figure it out because I still think we’re really good across most position groups! But it’s hard to look really good when your most important position group is a disaster area…

4. I’m praying this isn’t the case! Im nerveous! It’s my greatest fear of all of these!! #1 should be. But I’m holding out until after USC to throw in the towell. Maybe that’s because I’m going to the game and need to hope. I’ve never traveled for a utes win since we joined the pac 12. This includes arizona, oregon, uscx3, ucla. Ucla 2012 was particularly awful because I had the Sh!$s. But if the BYU streak is done, so is this one!!! It’s poetic justice and a sure thing.

5. I remember watching in real time the team picking up blitzes they weren’t earlier. They may have done some pulling back but you don’t just do that if you don’t have to. We were better and rising did a better job of holding them responsible for it.

Fun thoughts. Go Utes!!

[Central Coast Ute]

In the 4th quarter, SDSU ran blitzes, not prevent. Rising was able to identify them and move around in the pocket, out of the pocket or quickly throw it off. He seemed better suited to feel the pressure.

[Tomasina]

In the 4th quarter, SDSU ran blitzes, not prevent. Rising was able to identify them and move around in the pocket, out of the pocket or quickly throw it off. He seemed better suited to feel the pressure.

I agree with this analysis.  It was insane how quickly the defense was getting through our line, and that directly impacted our running game and Brewer.  I think Brewer is incredibly talented, but he seemed to struggle with the constant pressure he was facing.  I do not think the defense changed much in the last quarter, but rather that Rising seemed better adapted at responding to the pressure, and moving to avoid it.

If the Offensive Line improves and can give him time, perhaps Brewer would be the better quarterback… but as long as the offensive line acts more like a greeting party than a wall, Cameron Rising may bet the better choice based on what I saw Saturday.