To quote the article: “From an outsider’s perspective, the rigidity of the system had athletes solely focused on their own part of the offense and not the cohesive identity of the team as a whole. The result was a relatively unstructured offense early on that failed to maximize its talent, particularly an offense that featured an asset in running back Zack Moss that was underutilized by the pass-heavy scheme.
Utah had its successes, but it was clear midway through the 2018 season the team needed better.”
I see it somewhat differently, mainly because I think the article is an unnecessary backhanded slap at Troy Taylor. After a weak slow start, Utah dropped two games to the Washington programs. Then Taylor’s system produced four straight impressive wins in a row where the Utes scored 40 points or better. In that next game against ASU, Utah’s defense got torched by Manny Wilkens. Huntley, who threw two interceptions, got hurt, out for the season, and Moss was lost for the season later that week. If anything, at that point in the season Moss had been used to exhaustion, while on a few series, I did wonder why he was not being used more. Yet ASU’s coaching staff had very well prepared the Sun Devils for Utah’s aerial show, AND the Utes believed their own national ranking hype.
With Shelley and Shyne, the Utah offense never quite recovered. In that period, Taylor did throw up some wonky desperation plays. In that, his system showed weakness, if not a lack of cohesiveness. However, execution remained an issue, particularly for receivers. We have seen this with other OCs in the prior several years. The season begins okay, Utah gets rocking by mid-season, by the 3rd quarter of the season, teams figure out what Utah is doing and the Utes struggle.
Will it be different this year? I hope so. But that means execution needs to be sharp and continue to improve as the season develops and play calling needs to evolve. The amount of intellectual horsepower evaluating what teams do to limit their strengths is impressive. By mid-season, virtually all teams know what the opponent has, and has schemed a defense to match it. I expect no different this year.
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