Post game rant

[Trailgoat]

A lot already covered after the game.

Solid showing by Ute Fans. Props to those of you making the long road trip from SLC. That’s a big drive and an even bigger one after the loss. My experience with PSU fans was overall good. Rose Bowl trip win or lose is an amazing experience. PSU fans brought the noise for being outnumbered. Rising going out took the last bit of life out of Utah. Not sure it would of mattered as PSU had a solid defensive game plan and Utes seemed a little flat from the get go. Kuithe, Kincaid, and CPIII out caught up to Utah.

– Seems Rising is hedging to come back. Hope his heart is in it beyond the NIL. He’s already a Ute legend.
– Would like to see KW/Ludwig invest in the future at QB. If Barnes gets all the Spring reps, NJ should go to a team committed to his future. See what Penn State has done with Drew Allar, meaningful reps at QB in his in season four games beyond a few run right plays and scout team. Basically stating he’s are future QB.
– Hubert needs to call it a career. Great come back story, time for both parties to move on.
– LB position needs someone to step up and pressure KReid for his position. Could Bishop make the move to LB?
– JJ is a beast. All P12 next season. Had a solid game against a defense level he won’t see next year in the P12.
– Broumeester gets the soccer flop award of the game, love it!
– WR position, same old story, tired of piling on. Major talent and recruiting weak spot.
– Interesting to see which players hit the TP. Guessing we may see some surprises.
– Utes beat up in the trenches. 6 sacks by PSU, pressure all night, missed tackles, lack of leadership on defense.
– Next season is going to be fun. Future is continues to look solid for Utah football.

PSU came to play and execute a solid game play.

Hubert needs to move on. He had a great return story.

[Xanthis]

If Hubert comes back I am hoping the other guys can push him to the bench. He was the weakest link all year.

[Rick]

While at the game watching I was blaming a lot of stuff on Hubert.  I was fuming.  But I watched his post game interview on the PAC 12 Network last night and he said that the defensive calls were coming in late a lot of the time and he and other guys just were not in the right spots when the ball snapped on some plays.  I do remember a few plays where our D-line were not in their stances and were looking at the sideline when the ball snapped. 

I think Scalley got a little too cute for his britches in this game and that cause many of their big plays.  However, as I told my wife driving home yesterday, we have been spoiled with some really great safeties over the years and RJ is not one of them.  I think he gives max effort but being out of position only adds to his deficiencies and I put that on Morgan.

 

[Xanthis]

He wasn’t just bad in the Rose Bowl. He was playing very poorly in the CCG, but had a great play on the Int. He struggled a lot in multiple games this year. Scalley takes way too long to call the plays, but that doesn’t excuse Hubert trying to knock guys over instead of tackling or taking bad angles. 

[Rick]

In the Rose Bowl he wasn’t even near the plays to take bad angles.  It was like he was seeing something that wasn’t there or he was out of position to even start with.  Either way it was not good.  I just have to remind myself that they can’t all be Marcus Williams, right?

[chinngiskhaan]

Yes… Hubert needs to move on.

Seriously, he NEEDS to move on.

[tanute3]

Agree with your points, especially regarding Hubert and Reid. Pretty shocking how much our offensive line got dominated all game

[chinngiskhaan]

I’m not sure it’s fair to say our offensive line got dominated all game. Our running backs both had plenty of running room. The blitz pickup wasn’t great, but the blitzes usually came on downs when we were obviously going to throw.

[BD]

I think CPIII opting out affected the defense more than we think. Utah played a lot more zone than I expected in the game, and I wonder if that was because of CPIII being out. Clifford shredded the defense in zone coverage, as good, experienced QBs often do.

[Yergensen]

Defense has given up 83 points in 2 Rose Bowls. No bueno.

[concerned]

Loss of Kuithe and Kincaid really exposed how weak our WR’s are. W/o the need to focus heavily on the TE’s, the WR’s are easy to defend.

[EmersonUte]

I agree with this 100%.   If we go back on the season I’d think most of our 3rd down conversions were passes to the tight end or Rising scrambling.  Especially 3rd and 5 or more.  So having limited pass-catching tight ends left (love Yassmin, but kind of has not great hands…), and then when Rising went down, we just couldn’t convert.

For our team to take the next step and be playoff worthy I think we need:

 

1) top end WR or two to step up.  We need a true deep threat, and consistent pass catcher

2) two lock-down corners at the same time.  We’ve had one several times (Sean Smith, Jaylon Johnson, Clark Phillips).  For us to really light people up on defense we need two.  Maybe Snowden and Blocker can develop into that with Battle helping plug the hole for 1 year. We clearly missed CP3 out there.

3) more QB depth (backup has to be a little better than what we’ve had)

Otherwise, I love where we are at.  When we entered the Pac we had maybe a couple guys on our roster who even had offers from USC.  Now we’re regularly pulling guys with offers from the blue bloods.  We just need to get a few key spots shored up.  We are now living in a world where losing in the Rose Bowl to Penn State is truly disappointing because we expected to win.  This is still crazy.

 

[Jake]

Excited about next years defense, lots of question marks on offense. Damuni coming in and Fotu getting back from his mission will solidify the LB room while Barton and Medlock will get better. Hopefully coaches don’t just give Karene his job back because he was a starter. Ritchie comes back and probably settles into FS. Played SS with us as a freshman but Bishop has that locked up and Ritchie can play both safety positions. Vaki is very good in the nickel, Vaughn is still pretty raw yet talented, and Broughton is very solid as well. Marks comes back from injury and the Ole Miss transfer add great depth and can challenge for starting time.

[Charlie]

I get that we want everything, however, we need to understand the brutal facts of our current reality. This team and all before, has been built after several teams in the Pac and nationally have been put together. We are getting better but we have still picked recruits after the schools with old money. Yes we have won the conference now 2 years but it has been after others get a chance to pick. We can get lost when we get someone that also has an offer to USC, Oregon or others, because it is difficult to see that recruit is making a choice between becoming WR5 or WR6 at USC or WR1 or WR2 at Utah. We still are not at the point to win a recruit very often when matching a straight across offer with USC and Oregon and often several other Pac schools. We make up that gap with good coaching and development and enter the pool with many elite football teams. Upon arrival there, we compete well but clearly do not dominate. Getting all the way there and being 50/50 in very big games is awesome considering where we came from.

We are at the point that it is quite difficult to have strong starters at every position. Even harder is to have capable backups for all positions to fill in for injuries anywhere. I do believe our depth chart has been getting better every year but we still have more to go to catch the nation’s élite teams. The good news is we have passed more than half the teams in the Pac or P5 that had a huge lead on us and enjoy much richer resources than we have. Ask Az or ASU who arrived 31 years before us if they expected to watch our taillights disappear in front of them. How many B1G or Pac teams had a better New Year than Utah? We are not at the top of college football but we have come a long way hard and fast. For now the coaches have done a good job dealing with the soft spots in our imperfect depth chart.

The brutal reality is we did quite well and our next steps up are long shots.