Thursday Morning Football Thoughts

[Utah]

We are going to be good. Win the PAC-12 good? Maybe. Schedule might be a little tough for that, but I think our floor is 9 wins this year.

QB- Huntley is heavier, everyone loves Tuttle, Shelley ain’t going down without a fight. Wish I could go to the spring practices. Would be fun to watch.

OL- Uhatafe isn’t a legit NFL prospect (and by legit, I mean he has the ability to play in the NFL but shouldn’t get a combine invite). BUT, he got a combine invite because his OL coach is Harding. We have a damn fine OL coach. Incredibly respected. I think he has another 3+ OL taken in the 2019 NFL draft. This might be his last season here. Enjoy him.

WR- look at our top 8 WR’s: Covey, Mariner (Wilson), Thompson, Boyd, Simpkins, Hampton, Enis, Dixon. We don’t have a ton of experience, but whoa nelly, that is a ton of talent.

Front 6 – *shudders*. Fotu, Anae, Tafua, Thompson, Hansen, Penisini, Cravens, Barton, Pututau, Tonga, Hart…that is a NASTY group of bad men. *giggles*

Back end? Uh…who isn’t a NFL prospect? We are STACKED. Jaylon Johnson might be a first round CB. Blackmon is just another third round NFL player. Our safeties are nasty, fast and talented. Guidry, Tyreke Lewis, Davis, Smith, Afia, Hubert. Some real talent here.

I’ve said 100 times that it’s not fair to judge Whitt until we have a P5 team from top to bottom. We were close last year. I think this year we can safely say, we have a P5 team from player 1 to 125.

It’s insane. You look at our team and then look at TDS…ha ha. It’s night and day. I’m not sure they have a single player who would crack our two deep. It’s nuts.

[Utah]

I listened to the Rivals guys’ podcast on 1280. Some good stuff there. McBride was on. Some great stories. Some interesting takeaways:

The QB from Utah that ended up at BYU…Wilson, I think. McBride said he asked his parents where he wanted to live after football. They said Utah. So he told them he’d be crazy to leave the state. Make contacts/connections where you want to live.

Going along with that, he mentioned a lot of former players who left the state of Utah to play football. Then, when their careers were over, they’d call him looking for a job. He’d tell them he had his own former players to take care of and asked them why they didn’t get jobs at the schools they played for? The players said they wanted to live in Utah. He then asked them, “why do you leave then?”

Junior Angulo. No one knows why he signed with Texas. One of the hosts wondered if he’d be back playing for Utah sooner than later. Especially since the coach he signed up to play for is gone already.

They talked about Lenny Gomes. McBride said a few years after his statement, Gomes called looking for a job. McBride said he politely turned him down.

Also, side note, I’ve always been told that Grimes is now a multimillionaire living the high life. What I could find is that he is a football coach down south. Not a bad career at all, but a lot closer to what he was mocking than not. Interesting.

All in all, not the prettiest sounding production but a lot of good info and stories.

[User Suspended]

LOL! reading this I should assume the Utes will win the Super Bowl next year.

 

[Utah]

9 wins in the PAC-12 = Super Bowl? Ok. 

[EagleMountainUte]

Reading this I would assume you are a zoo fan. 

[UTUTE]

AnnArborUte?

[Puget Ute]

Lenny Gomes changed his name to something else (iirc took his mother’s maiden name as his surname, something like that).  He owned/ran a lumber company or somethign like that.

[Utah]

Yeah, from what I found, he worked for a lumber company, opened his own, that didn’t work out and now he’s coaching high school football. 

Nothing wrong with that career, but definitely not anything that justifies his words either. 

But, to his credit, he says he regrets his words. 

[utefansince79]

I seem to remember Lenny “they’ll be pumping MY gas!” working at some point for a petroleum company (which many Ute fans found to be ironic).

34-31

34-31

Twice as nice

 

 

[Chidojuan]

Don’t forget Pirtle and Lund mixing it up with the front 6. I hope they can rotate in frequently to keep everyone healthy. I wish we played USC and UCLA earlier in the year so we could terrorize their new quarterbacks. We also have a PUNISHING running back stable. Moss, Henry-Cole, and Shyne. If everyone can stay healthy, well, I’m pretty excited.

[Utah]

Yeah. Honestly, our LB’ers are good enough, it wouldn’t shock me to see Pirtle line up at DE. 

But, yeah, you are right. We have some real talent on this team. 

[EagleMountainUte]

Biggest question is going to be QB. Can Taylor be the QB whisperer for Whitt. It is a position he has consistently failed at/bad luck whatever you want to call it. 

Huntley needs to improve a lot because like you said plenty of talent to take his spot. 

[Utah]

Improve a lot? He was #3 in total yards per game in the PAC-12. 

He was much better than any QB we’ve had since BJ. 

Now, the wins weren’t there, but let’s not pretend our QB situation isn’t very, very good. 

Huntley had almost 300 yards total offense per game that’s amazing. 

He went 6-4 as a starter (and let’s not kid ourselves, he would have easily beaten Colorado). 

For a second year QB, that’s outstanding. Especially when two of his losses he probably shouldn’t have played in due to injury and the other two were to ranked teams. 

[EagleMountainUte]

Who made the decision to play him in those games where he was still allegedly injured? Also if you are alleging that the coaches played an injured player I think you are alleging something far worse. 

Maybe I meant that play calling and decision making needs to be vastly improved for Huntley.  His read option is dangerous and will lead to an inevitable injury.  His passes especially the deep ball have lacked that certain amount of touch necessary for the completion.  Competition is very much on for his position.  

Don’t forget how much love you threw Wilson’s way which again not all his fault.  If anything it is more of an indictment on Whitts ability to coach an offense. 

[Utah]

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. I think we might have different expectations of what I mean by getting better and that might be the mixup. 

Huntley’s RPO has to get better. I’ve said on here that if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t shock me if he lost the job. We definitely agree on that. 

And I agree about the long ball. He is a very good college QB right now. The long ball will take him to that next level and maybe bring the NFL into the picture. 

[EagleMountainUte]

That’s why I clarified I believe these kids have a lot of talent. Where the shortcomings have been are at the skill positions and coaching on the offensive side of the ball in the past.

Whitt is running out of excuses because I believe they are loaded at skill positions for 2018. So it simply comes down to coaching and utilizing the talent to its highest potential. Taylor needs to fix Huntley’s reads, and his long balls. Obvious statements on both but this is where we see if Whitt can get it done.

Oline should be drastically improved. Huntley needs to establish the run with the great backs. Moss doesn’t need to force him to make the correct read. He has excellent receivers and I think Tight ends this season. Just all around improvement.

[GoUtes]

Love the analysis. Thanks. Like you said about the WRs, I’m excited about the talent level but hoping somebody steps up to be a star. It was awesome having Carrington last year. I hope somebody can step up and be a playmaker. I think it will be tough for Covey to be that given that he gets home from his mission this week. Any predictions on who might be the star of that group?

[Utah]

The coaches keep talking about Boyd and Thompson and now Enis. 

I agree about Covey. BUT, know that I was never a believer. In fall camp I always downplayed him because of his size. I was wrong big time. 

So, hopefully I’m wrong again, but I worry that it will take time to get his quickness back and that he won’t be as thick as he was before and more prone to an injury. 

That being said, not doing spring ball is smart. He will have six months to get ready and that’s a long time. 

[vcsg01]

Covey will be very productive for us. That guy has the competitive spirit of a warrior. I think all the other talent at the WR position will only enhance his numbers.

[noneyadb]

Losing Hughes, their best tackling DB, is going to hurt. Blair needs to wrap up, and Ballard takes awful angles. Would rather see Hansen stay at SS, hope he’s durable enough to handle LB. Huntley definitely needs to improve the 20+ yd passes, and pocket awareness. Never was a big fan of Singelton, too many fumbles to be that go to receiver. Barton took some big strides toward the end of the season.

Wasn’t Nacua a top WR, and Tupai going to DL?  May have to consider Bernard as well.

DL- I’ll hold off on expectations until after game 3. If they can contain Gaskin then 9+ wins could be doable. If not,,,, they aren’t winning many PAC12 games.

 

[Utah]

I’m embarrassed to say I totally forgot Nacua. And I love Nacua. I’ll never forget freezing my ass off watching him in spring ball knowing he’d be one of our best WR’s. Hell, I said he’d be better than Fehoko when Nacua committed. 

Losing Hughes sucks, but we aren’t worse for it. Last night Yogi Roth said Utah had the best secondary in the south. Utah and Washington are a step above the rest of the PAC-12 when it comes to their secondaries.