2008 National Champ

not sure why the thunmbs down. Montana State is consistently one of the top FCS squads. Oregon State should win that game but if they are still figuring out their best lineups.,, let’s just say that UW knows exactly how it feels to play a motivated team early in the season.

As for NDSU – Arizona, I’d consider Arizona the underdog so them losing…[Read more]

good thing he’s going to Clemson so he won’t have to fight for playing time against the top rated talent in the country

While I like Wilner’s points for the most part, he really missed the boat on this one. UCLA got into the CCG twice because SC was on probation, were ranked, and would have been the South champ if eligible. The bigger issue is the need for a CCG at all. Using the new criteria of top two teams regardless of division:

2011: Oregon (8-1),…[Read more]

I’m sure every team that only loses one conference game can point to something and say “if”. Until someone manages to run the table, the odds are against it. 18 years of data > “if”

True. However as long as he had attained graduate status, he could have transferred somewhere else and given it one final shot at the college level to impress without penalty. The carries may not have been available at Utah, and I can understand not wanting to start fresh again, but he had not done enough to be a real prospect.

Rob Schneider in 50 First Dates?

Thank you for posting.

One thing that stood out to me was that Jackson still has the same mechanical issue. When he is going to throw, he drops the ball down to his waist. If he was a pitcher, he would be tipping his pitches. But in football, what it means is that he still has the same looping motion he had in high school which is going to…[Read more]

Kuithe is good but he doesn’t have world class speed

I know it doesn’t count but Star may also have gone 1st if it wasn’t for the heart issue detected during the combine. Which hasn’t stopped him from having a highly successful pro career.

technically, Utah was down 1 starter (Broughton) against Ohio State, along with 2 backups (Marks and Vaughn).

but your point stands

I don’t think in today’s college football, you can ever stop trying to bring in top quality QB’s. Tuttle and Costelli have both shown us that all QB’s have one foot out the door as soon as they step on campus. It would behoove the staff greatly to keep in touch with Johnson and continue that relationship, even if he ends up signing elsewhere.…[Read more]

Just to be clear: Utah said they were ready to compete at the P5 level which is why they accepted membership. But you want a grace period because Utah wasn’t ready to compete at the P5 level? Kinda blows those whole 2004 and 2008 “we were as good as anybody” narratives out of the water.

Cherry picking stats until you find the one’s you like…[Read more]

Sorry! I build narratives out of numbers for a living so I never am able to take someone else’s at face value.

The most interesting thing to me was that the time range essentially coincided with the beginning of the McBride era (1990 instead of 1992). I was there during Fassel so I’ll always have a little bit of an inferiority complex when it…[Read more]

That stat is misleading. Utah spent the first 19 years of that 30 in the WAC/MWC and is only .632 as a member of a Power 5 conference.

Which sounds about right. If you look at rankings since the CFP started (2014): one loss P5 teams usually end up in the top 6; two loss P5 teams end up in the top 12 and 3 loss teams go down to around 20 depending on SOS and who they lose two.

#8 pretty much means 10-2 regular season and wins in Bowl/CCG. Team Composite Calculator would give…[Read more]

I count 9 different names if you include Christensen

which film? the clips of Huntley getting hit before he had finished his drop and then making something happen downfield on his own? also saw plenty of clips of Moss buried under 4 defenders while all of his linemen were yards away trying to figure out what happened.

Perhaps you could link to the film showing Huntley continually leaving a clean…[Read more]

That parochial school and P-12 games were what sold me on Shelley. UW had an absolutely dominant defense in 2018 that had already shut Huntley and Moss down earlier in the season, and Shelley didn’t have Moss to lean on in the CCG.

Shelley threw a perfect pass that Mariner tipped a couple of times before Murphy took it to the house. That play…[Read more]

I think it depends on what level of confidence you think you had in Huntley prior to the 2019 season. My memory of that fall camp was that a lot of us felt there was not a big difference between Shelley and Huntley. I certainly don’t remember anyone predicting the season Huntley put together in 2019. He had missed multiple games the previous…[Read more]

Huntley’s running in 2019 was limited because he was already injured. Look at his carries/game through the USC game and then after. He started to get healthy and then took a pounding against ASU which is when Ludwig started inserting Shelley to run rpo’s on 3rd and short. Ironically, that’s when Huntley’s true value as a passer finally became…[Read more]