Utah #4 Rushing Defense

[PlainsUte]

Total defense #24.

See rankings here:

NCAA Team Rushing Defense

[mokus]

87 YPG after 6 games? That is nuts.

[UteThunder]

It helps that Washington State and Weber State were two of the six. Wazzu didn’t even try to run on us, and Weber is just not on our level.

Still very impressive, but I expect that number to go up a little each week.

[ironman1315]

Stanford rushed for 42 and Zona for 72. It probably won’t break 100 by the end of the year unless one or two teams just dump truck us on the ground.

[UteThunder]

Stanford was also without their Heisman candidate RB and Arizona is just a bad team this year. Both of those teams also fell behind big and had to go to the pass a lot more.

I expect most of the remaining teams on our schedule to put up slightly better numbers unless they too are missing their best RB or are an awful team or fall behind by a large margin.

[Chidojuan]

Love hasn’t been great all season though. Maybe he makes the game closer, and maybe he doesn’t. Making teams one dimensional should be a credit to the defense. The quicker they give up on the run, the better for us. I don’t see any of the South teams putting up better numbers. USC, CU and ASU are all pretty one dimensional right now. I don’t know what UCLA can do. Kelly’s offense is rush first, but they have a pretty squishy OL. Oregon is the only remaining team that is a true running threat.

[EagleMountainUte]

Love would have certainly helped Stanford establish the rush and take less pressure off of Costello. It is ridiculous to think otherwise. 

[ironman1315]

But would that account for the 3 score deficit?

[EagleMountainUte]

Idk Love is a very good player. Utah had two 7 point swings in that game. Really it may have been worst because Stanford keeps going to Love instead of passing. Love changes Furds scheme tho. 

[Chidojuan]

I disagree to the tone of SDSU.  Totally shut him down.  Costello actually had better yardage passing against us, we just didn’t allow them to finish drives.

[EagleMountainUte]

How much did it change Utah’s scheme against Wazzu when Leki Fotu sat?  Suddenly the pass rush started getting home in the second half a lot more. 

[Chidojuan]

Granted, and again, I’m not saying he doesn’t make a difference, but we don’t know what that would be.  I still think we could have made them one dimensional with Love playing, but we’ll never know.  I’m glad we got out with a win.

[PlainsUte]

Last week Arid-zona had just 72 yds.  So average is actually coming down.

USC is more of a threat in the air, we’ll see how that goes.  Versus the Bluffs they had just 62 yards rushing.  That would help bring down the average.

[rbmw263]

We are 7th in defense imo (yards per play)