Some RB stats

[Utah]

SC gives three guys the bulk of their carries, like us: Davis, Jones, Ware.

Davis: 37 att, 3.6 avg, 0 TD

Jones: 23 att, 5.1 avg, 1 TD

Ware: 17 att, 4.6 avg, 1 TD

I’m not sure what to make of this, because they have played Alabama and Stanford.

Alabama is allowing opposing teams to rush for 2.3 yards/carry. USC ran for 2.1 yards per carry. Mississippi ran for 3.2 yards/carry.

Stanford is allowing opposing teams to rush for 3.6 yards per carry. USC ran for 4.5 yards/carry. Kansas St ran for 2.8 yards/carry.

What does that mean? Who the hell knows. USC ran better than average against Stanford (maybe Stanford’s defense is a little over-rated) but worse than average vs Alabama (maybe Alabama just is that great).

 

[Utah]

Sticking with USC, they have allowed teams to rush for an average of 195 yards per game and a 5 yard per carry average.

VS Stanford, Stanford ran for 295 yards and a 6.3 y/c. For the season, Stanford is averaging 200 yards per game and a 5.0 y/c. Against Kansas St, they ran for 105 yards and a 3.5 y/c.

So, USC’s defense definitely did worse vs Stanford than Kansas State’s.

VS Alabama, USC’s D let Alabama run for 242 yards and a 5.3 y/c. For the season, Alabama is averaging 233 yards and 5.3 y/c. So, Alabama has been pretty consistent.

Now, USC did slow USU down, holding them to 49 yards and a 1.9 y/c.

[Utah]

My big concern for Utah is that we do what we did last year:

Abandon the run game. That we come out slinging the ball around, turn it over a time or two, and give USC all the momentum.

I hope we come out and do what Stanford and Alabama did, and run the ball 47 times. BEAT THEM DOWN.

Then play action off that to B-B and Patrick.

[Tony (admin)]

I think they remember.

[Anonymous]

Well I hope Shyne learns to use his pads a little better.  Moss runs with ferocity and knows how to take hits.  Utah seems to do better with the run game not down hill style but more pulling blockers to make holes.

[Utah]

As bad as we’ve stated our OL has been, our RB’s have actually been very good.

While we are only averaging 4.4 yards per carry, a lot of that is Joe Williams’ fault.

McCormick has the most carries and is averaging 6.1 y/c.

Moss is second in carries and is averaging 6.4 y/c.

Next comes Williams and he averaged 3.4 y/c.

Finally Shyne is averaging 5.6 y/c.

I think it’s save to say that McCormick and Moss are weapons. They have averaged good numbers vs bad defenses and against good defenses.

McCormick averaged 4.6 vs SUU, 6.2 vs BYU and 8.7 vs SJSU

Moss averaged 4.8 vs BYU and 7.9 vs SJSU

Shyne averaged 2.4 vs SUU and 7.7 vs SJSU

I think one takeaway is that our OL is getting better.

[GreatNorthernUte]

Our OL played relatively poorly against SUU. Otherwise, the OL has not played that badly at all.

Most of the time, line play is a war of attrition. If both teams have decent technique and are equally talented, it comes down to who is better coached and conditioned for the late game. The team that is better on this front starts taking over in the late third quarter and fourth We saw this element against BYU. Sure, Moss ran well, but really our offensive line took that drive over and busted some big holes. Our coaching, conditioning, and some slightly better athleticism took over. While BYU is indeed G5, remember that they are playing with 24 year olds on the roster — their linemen are closer to P5 than not because they’re just plain bigger.

The exceptions are where one lineman just physically outmatches his opponent. This usually doesn’t happen much between P5 teams. Of course, a true top 5 team usually has a couple of these players who just physically overpower in all circumstances. Anyway, this is what happened against SJSU. Their defensive line was clearly overmatched and did a good job to hold their own through most of the first half. They didn’t stand a chance in the second.

I expect the rest of the season to look more like the BYU game for the O line, as we enter conference play. However, they didn’t have a bad game at all there. Let’s see how they do against USC.