Charlie

Well…. No need to play the games, no need to watch a spring practice? Except it is not that simple. I will wait to see how ASU replaces Benjamin and wait to see what happens with the utes in spring practice. ASU has much more to do than sign some kids to get to the top of the south. They could easily move back a spot as much as move up.

The recruiting class is as good as I remember. The offensive game has their arrow point up the best in years. But our rebuild will start with the floor much higher than ever before. I think we will contend.

Patriots don’t need anything but a QB sneak for a yard. Everyone knows it is coming. I expect they practice it. Knowing the snap count should get you the first step. Fire low. QB can slide left or right to the best opportunity. Tom is not the biggest QB in the NFL, but for them it is rinse and repeat.

Being the more physical team can be done, week in week out gets tougher. Even the most physical team will not be able to keep it up long due to wearing down or having an off game. Utah is not the most physical team in the country at all. One of the most physical in the conference and better than average nationally. We are a long way from…[Read more]

I was pissed at Oregon for taking us apart. But that was a month ago. In bowl season, I watch and pull for every Pac team. Bad enough we wall back from the #5 spot, we don’t need the rest of the conference to fall as well. Our best interest is as many Pac wins as possible. OOC wins are important to all of us, none more important than bowl match ups.

Exactly, when we let those two plays get away I sensed we were not making the plays we needed. They would have got us going.

From the defense perspective, on 3rd or 4th and one, the defense always feels much better when the QB goes into shotgun. Very few QBs are regular on short throws. But the defense catches a huge break if the O runs out of the shotgun. Everyone is coming including from the outside.

Ludwig must add a QB sneak to his book. It takes 3 linemen that…[Read more]

Our issue is replacing Blackmon and JJ. Thankfully, we don’t have to do that with in game adjustments. We have been playing with 3 CBs so I expect the starters will not be able to lock down but also don’t present a weakness. Hopefully, we have very little need to go deeper than that. With a new player at free, our defense will not be near as…[Read more]

Over the long run, players leaving thru the portal will leave crowded situations to arrive at situations in need. Clearly, over time, we should expect all schools in general to benefit by filling thin spots while giving in crowded spots. Sure, there will be schools that benefit more than average and other schools less than average. But in the…[Read more]

How many times in the recent past have some felt like we have had an all time high only to see a new high shortly after? I guess it is natural to feel a high point can not be repeated. However, as we have been raising the ceiling on what the FB team can do, we have also been raising the floor even more related to where we start again. No reason…[Read more]

Goodness, I am an optimist but… I think Ludwig can improve Bentley just like he made improvements in Huntley and last year Bentley was good enough to carry a Pac team to a divisional title. Rising is a wildcard option as well. There is no reason to think next year’s RBs do not include someone that can go for 1000 yards. Bam just may help the…[Read more]

So, everyone not wining the national championship has failed? Nothing in between? Non’t improve on a great year last year, failure?

No reason to panic. Players behind all the stars are at a greater starting point than the stars were when they were unknown. The talent is great, the experience is short but will grow. Ludwig does not start from scratch this spring which will help but he will be working with new pieces. The defense also has lots of new pieces but that will…[Read more]

The next step was to get a good amount of the top local talent. After that, continue the same while making better inroads into Texas, California and Hawaii. All of the top 25 have been at it a very long time, only Mississippi State at 25 came from anywhere like where Utah came from. If it was easy, there would be several new comers every year.…[Read more]

Rising knows a bit about Texas and they know a bunch about him. Ludwig should have a package for him where he finds a situation where Texas would have an expectation about what he would do in the situation, then do the opposite. Another reason to bring him in early would be to get Texas busy thinking about defending another QB because it is not…[Read more]

Blackmon was making play after play at the beginning of the game. He went out, quickly his backup was hurt. As a result, we saw several long chunk plays by Oregon that our free safety would have played a huge part in but was missed by other safeties. Oregon’s MVP safety was forgiven for targeting in the first quarter.

Huntley’s bad pass into…[Read more]

A transfer QB is a bit of a risky thing. However, LSU seems to be doing quite well with their transfer QB that Ohio State told would never play…

I would hate to put all my hope in a transfer, but I don’t mind throwing one into a mix to see if they beat out the favorite.

I can only imagine that Utah and Oregon started thinking about each other a couple of weeks out but still had games to win. It is interesting that Utah did not lose focus with the 3 favored games they had leading up but Oregon did. Like our game with USC it may have been a wake up call.
On defense, Utah most often starts out conservative with a…[Read more]

I watched a different game. I actually saw two quite similar teams playing. Oregon was able to string together some scoring drives while Utah got stopped. Still I give Oregon credit for a great plan for run blitzing / pass rush as well as great zone blocking on offense. Utah was able to move the ball but the lack of a kicker resulted in…[Read more]