Battle of the Brothers: Utah vs. Utah St.

[UtahDan]

Ugly game, maybe I am getting older, but it has only taken 90 minutes or so for my pulse to slow and flushed skin to recede. IOW, I feel strangely calm. Lets see if it lasts.

1. Wynn is done. Whether his injury is season ending or not. He seems hesitant, tentative, and indecisive. All of the things he was not in 2009. The injuries are in his head and that is the last thing a QB can have on his mind in a game. The throws off his back foot, the delay of game on the second play from scrimmage. I can't imagine that the coaches can put him back on the field after yet another injury, given that he seems to start each game so tentatively. It is costing us bigtime.

2. Play of the game, IMO was the pass play that Keeton had on the offsides penalty in the 4th. everyone stopped except him. They flipped the field and made a huge gain to get into Utah territory. I think that without that play, they don't score the go ahead touchdown.

3. Our right tackle was schooled. Time to move Brenner out and insert Hemuli at Guard.

4. John White is one tough dude. 96 yards, all of them while taking on tacklers at the LOS or in the backfield all game long.

5. Kenneth Scott and Dres Anderson need to be the starters from here out. DVC seems to give up on routes and has found alligator arms this year. Scott catches that pass in OT without question, even with the DB trying to pull him down. Everyone know Dunn is going to run the reverse when he comes in the game and he has hands of stone.

6. Questionable play calling 1st and goal from the 6 in OT. We covered 19 yards on the ground, and the first play is a pass(knocked down), followed by Wilson on the keeper. The check down on 3rd and 21 was on Hays, not Johnson. USU dropped 8 and there wasn't much room in the secondary. A draw might have been a good call there.

7. OLine play is going to be marginal all year. Might as well figure out a way to minimize its impact.

8. Hays improved the flow of the offense, but his accuracy needs to improve. 12-26 isn't going to help move the chains. He was hurt by a few drops, but he needs to get the ball more on target.

9. The shield on the punt team is killing us. Same as the blocked punt for a TD last year, two players blocked the same guy and let a man run right up the gut, untouched. The shield works by blocking the guys up the middle, and hoping the punter is quick enough to beat guys trying to run around the shield. Those 3 guys need to figure it out.

10. The defense did enough to win, but had their problems as well. Palamo cost us in OT. a DE needs to have some sense of outside discipline. If Kruger is in there, that long run on 3rd down doesn't happen.

Good observations. What I learned is that we have some real limitations on offense at this point. Hays, as we found out last year, is decent but not great and last year we had a much better (at least by the end) O-Line which could establish a running game. So that is a bit of a conundrum. I'm not sure I think line play will be bad all year since part of the issue seems to be youth. I think it could improve quite a bit give that, but there aren't any patsies in our forseeable future so we are going to struggle. Also, we are breaking in an offensive coordinator, which means that we have a guy with a lot to learn under the best of circumstances, not someone who can draw on tons of experience to adapt to tough circumstances.

Still, the weapons are there on offense as you point out. If they can figure out a way to minimize weaknesses through scheme then we can be competitive, but I have my doubts about that. Going in and thinking optimistically I had hoped Wynn would return to freshman year form and that the O-Line would not be as bad as feared. But I've turned the page on Wynn. You are right, I think we lost him the first time he got hurt. We never got the pre-injury Wynn back. Time to move on.

Bottom line is that my expectations are much lowered. It is too bad to not have a better offense around Juan Blanco. Still, Kyles teams always get better. I have a ton of faith in him, if not in Johnson yet. I just think we may have some growing pains ahead in the next month.

Oh, and it's worth saying that Gary Anderson is doing a great job. I'm not saying that was a great team, but Gary seems to be getting every drop out of that program. Just as one small example, USU was ready to play at kick off. Utah seemed to not get off the bus mentally until the second half.

[Guest]

I thought the QB play was average at best. Keeton cannot throw the ball worth a damn. All the Utes had to do was manage down and distance and Utah State was done because Keeton cannot through the ball farther than 5-10 yards. The difference in this game was the blocked punt.

As for the Utes offense.... Really bad. The hit that knocked Wynn out of the game did not look that bad and in my mind, I thought he knew he didn't have what it took. They said, nothing was wrong with his shoulder which leads me to believe he quit out there. Hays looked head and shoulders above Wynn. The offensive line was the biggest problem as Wynn or Hays had no time to throw. I did think BJ made some adjustments in the 3rd quarter where he had Hays throw quickly off of a 3 step drop. That seemed to help along with the great field position but I am sure that they had to really dumb down the plays because Hays just didn't have the snaps.

White had an ok game but Utah State stacked the box and had no respect on the passing game. Plus the O-line reminded me of the Cougars and simply couldn't open up any running lanes. For those that are giving Keeton tons of props look at his 3rd conversion %. Pathetic. Utah was just as bad but I will give Hays a pass.

I hate to say this Ute fans but I am thinking this will be a long year for Utah football if the offensive line play doesn't improve. The offense was not good at all.

[Moliere]

Anyone predicting doom for Utes this year doesn't know how good of a coach Whit is. They'll bounce back and have a respectable season even with Hays at QB. They did just that after getting shutout by UNLV and I wouldn't expect anything less this year. Utah still has insane talent in the defense and the skill positions on offense, minus QB.

[LiveCoug]

Sorry Ute friends. I like to see the Aggies do well, so that was a fun game to watch.

Wynn is truly not that great and Hays, while quite limited, does show some more fire and if I were a Ute fan, I would be more comfortable with Hays than Wynn for dang sure.

[myboynoah]

I feel bad for Winn. Seems like he was snake-bitten for some reason. How dissapointing for the kid.

On those PI calls, I don't know the rule well enough on the Murphy call, but the final coverage looked solid to me. The Utah guy was falling back into the USU guy. How is that PI on USU?

[ERCougar]

I admit it--I was an Aggie fan last night. Which is weird, because I'm no fan of the Aggies. I think it may have been TopUte's analysis putting a team with a losing PAC12 record in the same group as USC that lost me. Or maybe I just remember all too well the crap we took after our USU loss. Or 54-10. In any case, y'all needed a little reality check.

But really, there's way too much talent and way too good of a HC to stay down more than a game. You seem to have one of these WTF performances every year--I just wish you had saved it for Saturday.

As good as your defensive rep is, the thing that scares me more than anything else is your receiving corps. Is there a better group of consistently great receivers in the country, year in and year out? Great hands, good speed and size. Just get the ball to them and let them work. I don't think your offense is as doomed as some people seem to think.

Ok, now that that's out--you just lost to Utah State. And Brian's still talking about a Rose Bowl.

[ERCougar]

I feel bad for Winn. Seems like he was snake-bitten for some reason. How dissapointing for the kid.

On those PI calls, I don't know the rule well enough on the Murphy call, but the final coverage looked solid to me. The Utah guy was falling back into the USU guy. How is that PI on USU?

Yeah, Utah--you'll never get that call. Even if he did pull him down, that stuff happens all the time, he hid it well, and still got a hand on the ball. And you're on the road. I repeat--you'll never get that call.

The Murphy call was terrible though. And a backbreaker.

[Portland Ute]

This cracked me up:

I'm not surprised that a player said that.

I'm surprised that player was John White.

[Portland Ute]

Sorry Ute friends. I like to see the Aggies do well, so that was a fun game to watch.

Wynn is truly not that great and Hays, while quite limited, does show some more fire and if I were a Ute fan, I would be more comfortable with Hays than Wynn for dang sure.

I think it's clear after 3 halves of football that Wynn was not going to be what he had been hoped to be.

It's all a moot point now that he is injured...again...but his injury is less devastating now than had he been looking really good and moving the offense up and down the field while throwing the ball all over the place. He was unimpressive to this point and I saw no reason that our season would have been any better with him playing than with Hays playing.

The team does seem to respond better to Hays. Hays has a lot of experience.

I *hope* he can be better than he was last year. People forget that he arrived on campus to play in Chow's pro-style offense TWO WEEKS before the season started and he was, supposedly, a spread-style QB.

At least this year, he'll have the spring and fall under his belt running the offense (whatever the hell it is trying to be).

I wonder when Whit will take recruiting QBs seriously. It's like offense and QBs are a hassle to him. It's like he refuses to acknowledge the importance of a potent offense and the importance of the QB position in football. It's like, "Go out there and don't screw up and let the defense win this game for us."

I said this last year, but it's almost as if he's becoming the anti-Fassel. (Other than robbing the offense of talent to bolster the defense. Although, there have been plenty of offensive players moved to defense.)

[Surfah]

I'm not surprised that a player said that.

I'm surprised that player was John White.

That's a quote I'd expect from Christopher. It is interesting though. It almost seems like there might be something implicit in his quote. Like the Utes should just be able to show up and beat anyone not in the BCS.

[ERCougar]

I wonder when Whit will take recruiting QBs seriously. It's like offense and QBs are a hassle to him. It's like he refuses to acknowledge the importance of a potent offense and the importance of the QB position in football. It's like, "Go out there and don't screw up and let the defense win this game for us."

This makes no sense to me. Don't you have an Elite 11 guy? And an all-conference back? And see my WR comment up above--as a BYU fan, they scare me worse than your defense.

[UtahDan]

I feel bad for Winn. Seems like he was snake-bitten for some reason. How dissapointing for the kid.

On those PI calls, I don't know the rule well enough on the Murphy call, but the final coverage looked solid to me. The Utah guy was falling back into the USU guy. How is that PI on USU?

I didn't see PI on the last play either. Christopher fell down. The bigger issue was throwing on first and goal from the 6. Or throwing a jump ball to Christopher instead of Scott. Call on Murphy was not bad because it was totally incorrect, but just because it is a remarkably rarely called penalty and the contact was pretty light.

[Portland Ute]

That's a quote I'd expect from Christopher. It is interesting though. It almost seems like there might be something implicit in his quote. Like the Utes should just be able to show up and beat anyone not in the BCS.

I don't disagree with you. It seems that would come from one of our d-backs or receivers.

Not White.

I'd be disappointed either way, but it's doubly disappointing coming from White.

[Portland Ute]

This makes no sense to me. Don't you have an Elite 11 guy? And an all-conference back? And see my WR comment up above--as a BYU fan, they scare me worse than your defense.

No. We don't have an Elite 11 QB. He was, IIRC, a "candidate" to be an Elite 11 QB.

White is an all conference running back. But I don't think that goes against what I'm saying. In fact, with what I believe to be Whit's mindset, I would expect the offense to be carried by a RB.

Admittedly, I'm probably a bit emotional this morning. I just did not see any positives other than Ken Scott and the interior defensive line.

Oh, I guess the punter was pretty good.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

That's a quote I'd expect from Christopher. It is interesting though. It almost seems like there might be something implicit in his quote. Like the Utes should just be able to show up and beat anyone not in the BCS.

I only watched pieces of the game due to practice last night, it seemed that USU was owning the line on offense when I watched. What happened to Ted Miller's dream lover Star L.?