Next 
Weber State – Thu 8/30 6pm – Pac12 TV 
I don’t know when I will get over it but good hell look at what Nebraska did??!!
First and goal at the 2, and we settled for a FG. Awful. Booker rushing up the gut scores that TD on 2nd or 3rd down. Very frustrating.
On the other hand at least we drew an easy bowl opponent. I fear we were too beat up to outlast Nebraska or Miami this year.
Yeah that was pathetic. The red zone play calls were awful. Not sure if Wilson audibled to those outside plays or what.
Yes with Booker that 1st and goal series is 7 points.
Wilson made a bad read on keeping it on 1st down when he should have handed off to Williams. Frankly, Wilson was always too big of a target on short yardage situations. He was at his best going north/south in the middle of the field.
2nd and 3rd down were WTF plays. UCLA had completely stuffed the box with at least 9 players. The play to call there is a fade pass to the corner, if you had the QB to pull that off, or any sort of jet sweep with a speed player around the end. Instead, Wilson keeps the ball and gets stuffed twice. SMH.
Right. Our ability to read defenses and adjust with a proper play to exploit what they were doing (like stacking the box) was poor this year (and last year, and the previous year, and the previous year…).
The UCLA game was very weird. Weird in terms of the vibe in the stadium. It should have been rockin’ like it was against Michigan. We should have set an attendance record, the place should have been absolutely nuts! But it wasn’t. The game felt like a loss since the last play of the Arizona game.
It was pretty damn cold that day, except for UCLA.
The crowd was more subdued and yea it was cold. I think everyone knew that our one dimensional offense, now missing the one (Booker), was not a good omen. Started off OK, but the Williams fumble in the red zone was a major blow. Then we went like two quarters doing nothing on offense. Hard to get excited about that. I kept getting up and yelling on 3rd downs and critical downs on offense, as it kept me warm.
The way we ended the season bothers me less in hindsight. We were very clearly a shell of our week 1-10 version of ourselves. I mean, I cant remember a team having their top 2 RB/TE/WRs out. How much that hurt Travis is very underrated.
So would you have rather beat UCLA, gotten smoked by Stanford in the P12CG and smoked by Wisconsin in the Holliday bowl, finishing 10-4 and MAYBE ranked, or finish 10-3 with a bowl win, and send our seniors out with a W? The week 8 version of our team scraps with Stanford in the CG, and then potentially beats Wisconsin. That was the best possible outcome to this season, but it just wasnt possible with what we were working with weeks 10-13
One could agonize forever about what it could have been if we had an effective offense that included a throw game to go with an outstanding defense. It’s just time to move on.
I know that UCLA will be down next year as they lose 3 starters on the OL.
USC will be fielding a new QB behind a weak OL. If it’s Max Browne, he’s not a mobile QB which will make it interesting.
UCLA has Rosen, they will be a force
He’s seen BYU’s Independence situation as an outsider. One would think that he’d push Holmoe to get back into the MwC or they die a slow death. Doubtful any P5 Conference would take them now as they bring very little to the table.
This is Utefans talk – fun to ride your BYU buddy about, but no substance to it. Everyone knows BYU is much better off as an Independent than as a member of a dying G5 conference.
As the FB coach he can push as hard as he likes, and it won’t change a single thing. Independence was a deliberate choice made by the university and the BOD. If they gain an invite yo a P5 conference they will accept it, but only in their terms.
Unfortunately for the fans they will rarely have a good slate of home games. Nearly all of their compelling matchups will be on the road.
And that schadenfreude is simply delicious. 🙂
Ever since my 1983 Cal State Fullerton Football team went 11-1 with a +22 turnover margin for the season, I’ve been a big believer in turnover margin (note: CSUF had future All Pro CB Mark Collins and future CFL career passing leader Damon Allen). Someone over on uterfans.net posted the following article on the subject:
http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/8/23/4649718/college-football-turnover-margin-winning-percentage
Utah ended up with a 1.0 turnover margin per game which projected out to 9 wins per the study. If you look back at our 3 PAC-12 losses, turnovers by Utah played critical roles in each of them. Travis Wilson’s 4 INTs leading to 21 points by USC. Booker fumble against Arizona. Williams fumble against UCLA.
I know the Utah crowd hated Dave Christiansen, but the reports were that when he came in and reviewed film on Utah, he concluded that they needed to cut down on the turnovers. Wilson had thrown for 18 TDS but also 17 INTs the 2013 season. They needed to cut down on the INTs and they did in 2014. People complained that they had Wilson on too tight a leash and they needed to open up the playbook. The rub was that as soon as you did that with Wilson, the INTs would pile up. I would argue coaches knew what they were doing and were coaching with Wilson’s limited abilities.
Utah now has Troy Williams coming in who passed for 24 TDS against 4 INTs. That is a pretty outstanding ratio and regardless of the level of play, reflects on his accuracy. I would expect to see a totally different approach to the offense next year.
I’ve long said that our offensive play calling was a “prevent offense,” designed to prevent Wilson from throwing picks.
WR has been a weakness since forever, but especially bad since ARod stopped coaching them.
Hopefully we will get a QB coach with an actual track record of developing QBs at a high level.
I don’t think there will be any more changes. Scalley tweeted no changes in defense and I doubt anyone on the offensive staff gets hired away. Troy Williams and Tyler Huntley signed on with the understanding that Arod would be the coach. I’m excited about these two guys and I suspect things are going to just keep rolling along.
Sources close to Ute football have told me Whittingham will be fired soon only to be scooped up by the TDS as their new DC and Special Teams coach. Enjoy!
We need to get more senior citizens on our coaching staff. Mack Brown doesn’t know it yet, but desperately he wants to coach the WR position at Utah.
Every year it’s the same thing. How do we fix the O? Every year I hope we make a little progress to give me hope, and every year right about now I am bummed that we had another great D without an O to make the team really great.
I used to give KW a pass, but I am starting to come around to the idea he just can’t figure out what needs to be done or can’t identify the person to do what he wants.
I love KW and want him to stay because he is a great representative of the U and appears to run a great program, but I’m starting to thing we will never develop an offensive identity.
Its sad because I can’t help but think it and I’d much rather be happy with what a good ride this year was and how much I like this group of seniors.
Trust me, Whitt knows what he’s doing. This comes down to recruiting and Utah has just failed miserably on the recruitment of skill position players, particularly QB and WRs. Salt Utah seems to recruit fine on defense, but QB and WR positions have been a conundrum. Hopefully, it’s turning around.
Rumors I’m hearing are that Whitt has reached out to Steve Smith to become the next Receivers coach. If true that would be huge. Imagine the impression A future NFL Hall of Famer would make on recruits? Utah has desperately needed such a recruiting presence on these skill position players. Utah just does not show well in the inner city where the bulk of these kids come from.
I don’t follow the NFL at all. Is Steve Smith still playing?
Yeah that’s cool. #2 was REALLY freaky.
#2 would get my vote, except for the fact a lot of luck was involved. Overall you have to give the Utes #1 because it was so amazingly well planned. I think Hackett deserved an honorable mention for his one handed fake punt, but all those looked like TDs so there is that.
BREAKING: Utah State transfer David Collette has committed to Utah, source told @CBSSports. Two years of eligibility remaining.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) December 22, 2015
I just logged in to post the same thing.
Welcome to the Running Utes!?!
Good pickup, I think he will fit in nicely.
Next year we will have an amazing frontcourt with Kyle Kuzma, Jayce Johnson, and David Collette. And our two newcomers get to battle with Poeltl in practice this year. This is wonderful news, and Collette will be a solid contributor.
He seems to be the least dysfunctional zoob coach since Edwards. I’ll miss the dysfunction. He has no head coaching experience that I’m aware of. It will be interesting to see what he does. All due respect, I hope he fails miserably.
I’m not sold on the hire as a knockout either. He’s running a KW defense, has never head coached before, and is dealing with a Duke/ND/Texas/Auburn type entitled fanbase. Also, he’s walking into a scheduling nightmare for a first year coach. Yeah, he’s a great recruiter but the Zoob independence curse he’s going to have to recruit against.
Not to say anything disparaging about a KW defense but pointing to his defense success at Utah being very much under the tutelage of Whitt and his experience on his own with the Beavs being statistically terrible even though progressed by the end of the season. Successful head coaches need knowhow both sides of the ball. His experience on defense on his own (although limited) wasn’t a homerun, and his offensive abilities, well I guess time will tell.
Let’s face it, BYU’s last area of recruiting strength was the LDS kids. That’s why it was a requirement for the HC to be active LDS. Sitake will do a good job recruiting Polys. He’ll need a strong OC. They still face the issue of convincing recruits that playing an independent exhibition schedule is the way to go.
Jury is out on this hire. Hoping he raids Rodrick, so Whitt can go hire a real QB coach with prior QB playing experience.
My assessment of Sitake: great recruiter, great “player’s coach”, but honestly, the jury’s still out on his coaching ability. We will find out soon enough if he can stand on his own or if his defensive success was merely a product of KW. Here’s hoping to a steep learning curve for Sitake!
New boss same as the old boss. He’s going to struggle like any first time coach with first time coordinators. He will be outcoached by every P5 team next year and the year after. The Sitake hire just kicks the can a little further down the road in terms of BYU hitting rock bottom. If Sitake is successful, meaning 8-10 wins (well after his first two years of course) he’s going to jump at the first P5 HC offer or good G5 gig. That puts BYU where they are now if Sitake had turned down the offer, in other works, f**ked.
If he were to win 8-10 in his first season, which he won’t, the expectations would never go down for him. (Kiffin 101 – coaching an entitled fan base.)
A win @ the Rose Bowl over a top 10 team, a 42 point win in Autzen stadium, and a win over number 7 Duke in their second home stadium. I really need to check with the AD about becoming a Football/Basketball team travel partner.
On a more serious note, we might not have had the big time breakout year like we had in 04 and 08 since joining the Pac 12. But man, we have had some GREAT wins. And that is trending up as well.
Ah we should have met up at the Garden. How about that atmosphere?
Awesome atmosphere. Really impressed by the Utah showing. Especially considering we had our bowl game that day. Enough fans there to have a back and forth with Duke fans (even if there were a decent amount more of them)
That’s cool. I’ll take top 25 with this squad any day.
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