Category: Football

Utes HAND New Mexico the ball 5 times, all lead to touchdowns…. Utah loses to New Mexico.

In the IMPROVEMENT category has to be the defense. Early in the season our defensive backfield had some serious problems. We were getting burned by opposing receivers constantly. They were wide open in our defensive backfield. But the defense HAS adjusted. We’ve tightened up our DB’s and they’re doing an excellent job. Early in the year our DB’s never seemed to look back when the pass was coming to give themselves a chance at making a play on the ball. This too has been fixed.

The D-Line has also improved. Early in the year we weren’t getting much pressure on the opposing QB. This has been improved vastly.

The defense HAS adjusted over the season. They’ve looked at what they’re doing wrong and addressed the problem.

LACK OF ADJUSTMENTS

The offense at last night’s game was a prime example of what I believe to be a case of not seeing the OBVIOUS.

In the first series we exploit NM’s defense with 3 long bombs and score a touchdown immediately. Now if I were the offensive coordinator I’d just keep going with that scheme until it didn’t work any more. Instead, Ludwing decides to go away from what worked in the first series, to running predictable hand offs up the gut. These running plays get stuffed and we’re back in the problematic 2nd and 10 or 3rd and 8 situations.

We make most of our first downs and big gains in the air. So what does Ludwig do? Run the option. The option was NOT WORKING. So what does Ludwig do? Run the option. Run the option. LAME, PREDICTABLE, INEFFECTIVE. If it is not working WHY DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN?

New Mexico realized they were getting burned when we passed, so they decide to start blitzing and it works for them. So they blitz more and more. They blitz constantly because it is throwing our offense completely off. They stay with the blitz BECAUSE IT IS WORKING. DUH!

Now if I’m an offensive coordinator and my team is being blitzed all to hell, and if the blitz is killing my offensive plan what do I do? FRIGGING ADJUST. I would start throwing some screens. Run some draws. And what is a great way to make the defense honest and stop blitzing? RUN SOME 3 STEP DROPS AND THROW SOME QUICK SLANTS. The area the blitzers came from was WIDE OPEN the whole frigging game. RUN A DAMN SLANT FOR HELL’S SAKE. MAKE THE DEFENSE PAY FOR BLITZING. The byu film room is going to be salivating watching this. If they’re even remotely smart, they’ll blitz the hell out of us this week.

NO. We don’t adjust on offense. This lack of observing the obvious is similar to games early in the season where we have 1st and goal from short yardage and we run the same damn running play 4 times in a row without success. If you are in short yardage and you get stuffed by the D every time you run up the gut, DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT! ADJUST!

I’m no football coach but here’s my point:

IF IT WORKS, KEEP DOING IT. IF IT DOESN’T WORK, MAKE AN ADJUSTMENT AND DO SOMETHING ELSE.

I took my boy to the Wyoming game about 1.5 hours early to meet up with several friends in the tailgate parking lot. I took a TON of pictures of the Ute tailgaters so hit the photo gallery for those pix and pix from the game obviously.

I visited my pal webmonkey from utefans.net and his pirate ship. I also dropped in on my pop and his pals on the East end of the lot. My pop had a gift for my by (9 years old): An autographed Utah baseball cap by Kyle Whittingham himself!

I’m considering getting my own tailgate pass next year. It is just plain fun.

The Game

The first quarter was a bit of a concern as we ended up in 3rd and long seemingly all the time. All we could come up with were field goals. We eventually broke the game open and started scoring touchdowns.

Even though our backup backs (Ganther was out) had a tough time running, we racked up over 500 yards of offense and 43 points. Johnson was awesome and personally accounted for over 450 yards of offense between his passing and running. Oh, and he had 4 TD passes!

Touchdown Utah!

Defensively we moved Weddle to corner to cover Wyo’s great receiver. Total shut down. That receiver only had a little more than 40 yards and no TD’s. Wyo only manages 13 points.

Finally some obvious improvement

Finally as a team we showed obvious improvement on offense and defense. I’ve been waiting for this improvement since the 2nd or 3rd game of the season. The TCU game apparently really took it’s toll on us mentally and that may have something to do with it.

But now the team looks confident and is definitely moving the right direction.

The one weakness I still have an issue with, and have even since last year, is our kickoff game. We don’t get many touch backs at all, and our kick coverage is giving up way to many yards on returns.

Overall a great day and a great game. The weather even cooperated.

GO UTES!

This is what tailgating is all about. Meet my new friends from utefans.net.

I’ll start with the bad so we can end on a positive note!

The Bad

The Good

– THIS UTE FAN DOES go to every home game since the 70’s.

– THIS UTE FAN DOES wear red from head to toe and even dries off with a freaking RED towel on game day.

– THIS UTE FAN DOES cheer the team on through thick and thin but can still be critical. Is being critical of your team not being a fan?

– THIS UTE FAN DOES scream so hard at the games his voice is gone the next day

– THIS UTE FAN DOES appreciate great plays and high-fives everyone in row 26 with every one of them!

– THIS UTE FAN DOES HOPE the team is learning something. It just doesn’t look like it.

– THIS UTE FAN is critical of some of the offensive play calling and is NOT ALONE!

– THIS UTE FAN DOES know how much time the coaches spend at work. That makes the simple mistakes even more questionable.

– THIS UTE FAN DOES wear read.

– THIS UTE FAN DOES look forward to EVERY game, rain or shine, win or lose.

GO UTES