What’s Wrong with Utah and Bowl Games?

[The Miami Ute]

Can someone explain to me how, after a month of rest and prep, the offense came out the way it did? If Utah was playing a team with a competent offense tonight this would have been a 40-50 point loss considering the turnovers. Honestly, one of the least entertaining games I’ve watched in my life.

[EagleMountainUte]

The repeated decisions to keep Barnes in made a lot of sense. Based on the 700 pre game interview Whitt even seemed hopeful that Barnes would return.

I am not convinced Barnes is gone. Because Whitt will certainly welcome him back.

[The Miami Ute]

If Barnes does come back it’ll be solely because no other team wants him. And, honestly, who could blame those teams?

[EagleMountainUte]

Being the one team who wants Barnes is depressing man.

[uteinzoobcounty]

Preparing, Utah preps like it’s another game. Other teams prep likes it’s the last game.

[SteelUte]

Honestly I think the teams mentality mirrors the general mentality in college football. When you have players sitting out for the rose bowl you realize these games just don’t matter to everyone. It mattered more to Northwestern, and that is just sad. Bowl games are just not what they used to be.

[SkinyUte]

Northwestern had one starter in the transfer portal. One. And they had no one opt out. Everyone else played. That was basically the starting squad from a 7 win B10 team.

Utah was playing our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th string guys. Most of our major contributors on both sides of the ball opted out or moved on.

We can’t take that much talent off the field and still expect to compete. Were not Bama or Michigan who simply plug and play with yet another 4-star backup.

[EagleMountainUte]

Competed just fine on one side of the ball.

Offense is trash.

[Utah]

I was at the game and was shocked at how many more players NW had than we did. It was crazy.

[Utah]

Here’s the dirty truth we don’t want to admit:

When you have a team who won back to back P12 titles and then had such an injury riddled year and then had a lot of players declare for the draft/transfer…their motivation might not be as high as a s**tty B1G team’s.

Sometimes the better team has a disappointing year and isn’t as ready to play.

[The Miami Ute]

I’d think that the motivation of the guys who were getting the opportunity to start in a bowl game would be quite high. My biggest concern is the addiction to Barnes when he’s proven in copious game tape that he’s not a P5 QB.

[Utah]

Yeah, Barnes is…not great.

[Charlie]

There is a lot to how poor a team plays that is not in the bowl they expected. Utah has feasted on this themselves in the past.

[DataUte]

Whitt’s bowl game prep is legendary! He’s 11-1 in bowl games. Utah just doesn’t lose! Oh, wait, that was 2017 calling. 5 losses since then. Looks like it was more the mediocre opponents than some magic sauce.

Apparently, the players were given a long leash in Vegas, reminiscent of Huntley’s Alamo bowl team. Business and pleasure trip.

Defense played super. A simple goal could have been to hold NW under their season avg (~21). They did that. If the offense goal was to score what NW gave up on average (23), we failed. The defense giving up 14 was no problem. They should expect the offense to score 21. It’s like an Ace pitcher getting no run support, losing 2-1.