The Utah 2011 Football Thread

[BigPiney]

Thus my mantra for 2011: Eight is great!

this should be your new avatar:

[Brian]

So now that a 10-3 season is over, with many question marks hanging over next season, what do y'all think, Ute fans?

1. Will Wynn regain his 2009 Poinsettia Bowl flair?

2. Will we develop a defensive secondary?

3. Will our linebackers develop into actually being factors in the game?

4. Will we have a pass rush once again?

These questions look pessimistic but on reflection, but most of this seems fixable.

Re #1, there is every reason to think a healthy Wynn can be the QB we need.

Re #2 I need the input of smarter football minds than mine. But history shows us KW knows how to develop a defense.

Same answer for #3 and 4, assuming we have athletes who can do the job. I guess you can't coach speed and agility.

Tell me, Ute fans, what do you think? (I'm looking at Jarid, Hot Lunch, BoylenOver, U-Ute, and others who know more about football than I do.)

My question #1 is who is going to be the leader next year?
I have no idea who it was this year. Seemed like nobody.

Wynn hanging in the back w/ a hat on? Why isn't next to the OC, headphone on, working the guys, talking to Cain? Maybe he was and I didn't see it,.....

I hope we have 1 RB getting most of the reps. Didn't seem like either of the RBs could really get into a groove this year.

[Mormon Red Death]

I'm not ready to blame the offensive woes on coaching. The WRs were quite dissappointing & the run game just wasn't there. I believe it was more a talent/execution problem than gameplanning and playcalling.
Wynn has potential but for the most part he's been average.

10 wins is always a very good year, I don't care who you are. There will need to be some serious upgrades before the Utes will win 10 games next year.

Sorry but the offensive coaches get the blame. Not since before Air Force did the offense put together two solid drives in a row. Some things the Offensive coaches did not correct.

1) A QB who refused to step up in the pocket. Wynn repeatedly would go back 7 yards to throw a 20 yard pass that would be a net gain of 3 yards.

2) Develop a scheme for the passing game that beat a Zone defense. Air Force was the first to figure it out then TCU played it to perfection. Every team after that did the same thing. Just play a straight defense and Zone while only rushing 3 or 4 and Utah can't move the ball. Play man to man and bring 5 or 6 Utah hits a slant route for td.

3)Repeatedly running you slow bruising back on pitches and sweeps while at the same time running your fast back up the middle. Would it have killed the coaches to run the option to eddie wide outside once?

4)Never setting any play up. Watching the AF game I thought Utah was setting up a dunn hand off. I was wrong. In any other game did Utah ever set any plays up?

5)Since they never set any plays up they abandoned half of their playbook. What happened to the option right to end only to flip to a reverse man. Since, Utah never ran the option The reverse could never work.

6)Not using some strengths available in their system. If ever there was a qb built for the wildute set its griff robles. From SDSU on They should have had Robles running wildute on short yardage. Additionally, Not even playing Robles in the veg was incredibly stupid. Cain hadn't done anything why not see what robles can do?

Hopefully kyle does what he did before the 2008 season where he put all the coaches on Notice and didnt give anyone a raise.

[LA Ute]

I asked because I was curious if people were optimistic. From a distance, it seems like you have about as many reasons for hope as you do question marks, so I would expect about the same level of performance, which I was surprised to see would put you at 7-5 or 6-6 (I don't think you win in Provo). I wonder how Ute fans would deal with that. Sounds like you're pretty realistic in your expectations.

With the two division PAC, how do they determine bowl bids, i.e. who's the PAC12 #5/#6?

I don't know the PAC12 minutiae yet. As for Provo, I don't think either side of the rivalry has much of a home field advantage, but I also don't know if BYU will be better than Utah next year. That's not smack, I just don't know. I think only the most hard-core, unrealistic Ute fans will be really disappointed with 7-5. 6-6 might cause more grumbling, but being in their first year in a newer, tougher league will probably get the Utes a pass from most people.

[ERCougar]

I don't know the PAC12 minutiae yet. As for Provo, I don't think either side of the rivalry has much of a home field advantage, but I also don't know if BYU will be better than Utah next year. That's not smack, I just don't know. I think only the most hard-core, unrealistic Ute fans will be really disappointed with 7-5. 6-6 might cause more grumbling, but being in their first year in a newer, tougher league will probably get the Utes a pass from most people.

I'm not meaning the Provo thing as smack either, which is why I strictly looked at Sagarin ratings and gave Utah the game. However, the Sagarin ratings didn't count BYU's bowl win (bigger than Sagarin would predict) or Utah's bowl loss (also bigger than Sagarin would predict), so the rating differential would narrow. Also, BYU outplayed them this year, and every BYU fan and their dog knew this would be a rebuilding year. There's good reason to believe that BYU's trajectory is upward. I have no idea what Utah's is, but finding an offensive identity seems to be a high priority, and that might be tough to do by the third game of the season when you're losing some of your best playmakers. Also, if you take what DDD pointed out about higher attrition in BCS games, a valid point, IMO, your position is even tougher. So I'll call Utah a flat trajectory at best and BYU an upward one and give the win to BYU. Just my opinion. If you take the win, that's still 7-5, which I'm guessing is worse than most Ute fans are expecting.

EDIT: My point in this isn't to take any glee in Utah's demise (well, maybe, a little... ). I'm mostly just bored on a slow day at work, so I was playing around with future schedules (do the same thing with BYU and we're 6-5...our trajectory BETTER be upward). I was actually surprised that a pretty good season translates to 7-5 with next year's schedule.

[LA Ute]

EDIT: My point in this isn't to take any glee in Utah's demise (well, maybe, a little... ). I'm mostly just bored on a slow day at work, so I was playing around with future schedules (do the same thing with BYU and we're 6-5...our trajectory BETTER be upward). I was actually surprised that a pretty good season translates to 7-5 with next year's schedule.

In your business I guess that is bad for you but good for the public.

[OrangeUte]

Another recruit out of Blinn CC.

http://m.sltrib.com/sltrib/db_109154...x8Og0E&src=cat

[Portland Ute]

Sorry but the offensive coaches get the blame. Not since before Air Force did the offense put together two solid drives in a row. Some things the Offensive coaches did not correct.

1) A QB who refused to step up in the pocket. Wynn repeatedly would go back 7 yards to throw a 20 yard pass that would be a net gain of 3 yards.

2) Develop a scheme for the passing game that beat a Zone defense. Air Force was the first to figure it out then TCU played it to perfection. Every team after that did the same thing. Just play a straight defense and Zone while only rushing 3 or 4 and Utah can't move the ball. Play man to man and bring 5 or 6 Utah hits a slant route for td.

3)Repeatedly running you slow bruising back on pitches and sweeps while at the same time running your fast back up the middle. Would it have killed the coaches to run the option to eddie wide outside once?

4)Never setting any play up. Watching the AF game I thought Utah was setting up a dunn hand off. I was wrong. In any other game did Utah ever set any plays up?

5)Since they never set any plays up they abandoned half of their playbook. What happened to the option right to end only to flip to a reverse man. Since, Utah never ran the option The reverse could never work.

6)Not using some strengths available in their system. If ever there was a qb built for the wildute set its griff robles. From SDSU on They should have had Robles running wildute on short yardage. Additionally, Not even playing Robles in the veg was incredibly stupid. Cain hadn't done anything why not see what robles can do?

Hopefully kyle does what he did before the 2008 season where he put all the coaches on Notice and didnt give anyone a raise.

I'm wondering if you are hearing the voices in my head, too...

[LA Ute]

What is the reason that Griff Robles never set foot on the field in 2010 (unless I am forgetting a game when he did)?

[DrumNFeather]

What is the reason that Griff Robles never set foot on the field in 2010 (unless I am forgetting a game when he did)?

He got some mop up time.

[Top Ute]

What is the reason that Griff Robles never set foot on the field in 2010 (unless I am forgetting a game when he did)?

He played against UNM for sure, and I think he saw time against UNLV and/or SJSU.

[Brian]

UNM, SJSU, ISU, CSU.
Top rusher in the UNM game, and came in Q2 of the ISU game.
I saw him in the spring game, and he looks to have a pretty strong arm.

[LA Coug]

I'll take a shot here.....

imo, the pac-12 south is wide open next year, especially with USC currently ineligible. My projected order of finish in PAC 12 play is

USC 7-2, losses to Stanford and Oregon
Utah 6-3, losses to USC, Cal, and AZ
ASU 6-3, losses to USC, Utah and Oregon
Arizona 4-5, Losses to Stanford, Oregon, USC, UW, ASU
UCLA 3-6, losses to OSU, Stanford, AZ, ASU, Utah, USC
Colorado 1-8, they beat WSU

Utah draws a break not having to face Stanford or Oregon and getting 5 conference home games. I'm not sure how the tie-breaker works, but pretty sure with identical conf records and Utah taking the head-to-head, Utah would represent the South in the title game. This makes me insanely jealous living in LA, having to admit that the Utes have a legit shot at PAC12 title. I'm also jealous of the chance my Ute buddies will have to watch them play in LA once per year. I don't think it's smack to suggest that the Rose is a long shot. Next year may be one of Utah's better opportunities due to drawing the weaker end of the North teams and getting 5 at home. Sure, they still need to find an offense......but I think this is their race to lose.

I would add I think they'll lose one of the @Pitt or @ BYU games to finish 8-4. Not bad though.......

[LA Ute]

imo, the pac-12 south is wide open next year, especially with USC currently ineligible. My projected order of finish in PAC 12 play is

USC 7-2, losses to Stanford and Oregon
Utah 6-3, losses to USC, Cal, and AZ
ASU 6-3, losses to USC, Utah and Oregon
Arizona 4-5, Losses to Stanford, Oregon, USC, UW, ASU
UCLA 3-6, losses to OSU, Stanford, AZ, ASU, Utah, USC
Colorado 1-8, they beat WSU

Utah draws a break not having to face Stanford or Oregon and getting 5 conference home games. I'm not sure how the tie-breaker works, but pretty sure with identical conf records and Utah taking the head-to-head, Utah would represent the South in the title game. This makes me insanely jealous living in LA, having to admit that the Utes have a legit shot at PAC12 title. I'm also jealous of the chance my Ute buddies will have to watch them play in LA once per year. I don't think it's smack to suggest that the Rose is a long shot. Next year may be one of Utah's better opportunities due to drawing the weaker end of the North teams and getting 5 at home. Sure, they still need to find an offense......but I think this is their race to lose.

I would add I think they'll lose one of the @Pitt or @ BYU games to finish 8-4. Not bad though.......

Your moniker could become confusing. You'll probably suffer for having your posts mistaken for mine. I think a lunch is in order one of these days. And welcome to the board!

[UtahDan]

Whoa there is an LA Coug.