2008 National Champ

Games that matter: (this assumes that the 7 teams in contention will beat the 5 teams who are out of the running. any upsets will change the math)

10/4: UW @ USC
10/4: UCLA @ Arizona
10/11: Utah @ UW
10/11: USC @ Oregon
10/18: UW @ Oregon State
10/18: Utah @ Arizona
10/18: UCLA @ USC
10/24: Oregon State @ Oregon

Yes on the tie-breaker. I went through that a couple of days ago but it all comes down to who you miss for SOS. Stanford is Utah’s ace in the hole and WSU forgetting how to play football after their bye week is just frosting on the cake.

Oh, and I forgot to add Arizona to the 2 loss list that is still in the running.

As of right now, there are…[Read more]

Actually, no. The only likely way Utah gets into the CCG at this point is if they win out and are in a 3 way tie.

UW, USC and Oregon all control their own destiny. Utah, UCLA and Oregon State all need help.

He didn’t lose a year, he just hasn’t played. Had Rising come back as hoped for the start of the season, Rose wasn’t going to get more than garbage time reps anyway, even without the injury in camp.

People think medical’s are automatic and they aren’t. I would question whether Rose would be eligible since he’s apparently recovered and is…[Read more]

I don’t think he’s calling for Whitt to be fired. We’ve seen Whitt coached teams for 19 years now and we know what we are going to get. An attacking defense and a risk averse offense. That’s not going to change as long as Whitt is the Head Coach. Recognizing that is not the same thing as “Fire Whitt”

Miami, myself, Eagle and many others are…[Read more]

We should never again allow ESPN Gameday to come in here for a day game.

It’s pretty hard to convince your team that they are underdogs with a “chip on their shoulder” mentality when they are getting daily reminders of how good they are. If anyone was motivated in 2010 or yesterday it was the visiting team(s).

Taylor was also the last in a long string of what of felt like a new OC every year and his scheme was radically different than what anyone was used to. There was always going to be a certain segment of the fan base that didn’t like how he did things, but if we are being honest, that’s going to be true no matter what happens.

2017 Taylor took a…[Read more]

The option route you speak of was for Vaki to either continue his route across the middle like he did against SC for the TD or settle in the open area. Once he turned in he committed the QB, not the other way around. If he wanted to settle against his coverage read, he should have stayed at the apex of turn. Vele has a habit of doing that also.…[Read more]

Fifita is a red-shirt freshman.

There are a lot of reasons why Utah doesn’t have a good passing game. Part of it is Barnes/Johnson, part of it is line play, part of it is play-calling, part of it is the receivers. How much you want to assign to each is up to each viewer’s discretion.

Right now, Utah just is not good at offense. Yes, there…[Read more]

He’s got a good scheme. At Utah, I had two main complaints: 1) he seemed to come up with a new formation package every week, which he doesn’t do anymore and 2) he would go away from what was working for no apparent reason.

I remember the 2017 game against Stanford. Moss and Henry-Cole were running all over them and Utah was down 3 late in the…[Read more]

People say that every year after Utah loses a game and it’s never true. I keep hoping Ludwig will recognize that he doesn’t have the players to run his preferred two TE offense and dig into that playbook of his that’s supposed to have over 1,000 plays.

When your line is getting beat, do them a favor and call some hot reads or screens. I can’t…[Read more]

Vaki is playing out of position and it’s shown the last couple of games. I’m actually not sure what his best position is on D. When they blitz him, he does well. And he’s decent in coverage but not what you want from a Free. Where he’s really struggling is when he needs to set the edge. Maybe he’d be better off moving back to nickel?

The…[Read more]

Yup. I thought they’d go for two.

And how bad was that last 4th down play? Catch that damn ball and you are driving for the winning points. How do you not get dirty on that one?

The first pick was 100% on Vaki. The second one was a great play by the defender.

The problem is the routes, not the passer. It doesn’t appear as if any of the calls have option routes because they run the same tree no matter the defense. If you want to run a stick route, you need to either have a route over the top to draw to put the defender…[Read more]

The problem is that they aren’t good at either run or pass blocking so you can’t lean on either. 3rd and short, 4th and short the runner is getting hit in the backfield. But they keep running those plays as if the line is getting 6 yards of push.

Interestingly, the one 4th down they converted today was also the longest pass of the game.…[Read more]

Stanford scores to cut it to one point.

ASU has a good D Line so Utah will struggle on O. But they have a much worse offense. 24-12 Utah and everyone who watches the game will want to know why they are watching 1970’s vintage offensive playcalling in 2023.

UW is gettable but you have to play a complete game. ASU very well could have won last week in Seattle and Stanford is giving them everything they can handle tonight.

There isn’t a team in the league that doesn’t have flaws. You just have to exploit them on the correct day.

I like the optimism. But is Utah really going to pin it’s championship hopes on two guys who haven’t played a down so far in their freshman year to be lockdown corners?