To be honest, I’m not shocked about last night. We played a lot of bad or just average teams. We are very good and beating bad and average teams was natural. But against USC? Their athletes dominated ours. Washington? Close game.
Struggled to run at times against ASU and Colorado as well. Maybe we were the 2nd or 3rd best team in the league all along.
Our Oline killed our Dline. Our defense is what it is because of the offense finishing long drives. When that isn’t happening they get gashed. Oline wasn’t great and it cost us two games. I really think it’s that simple. And special teams were pretty average all year. I don’t know when we will have this many senior stars again, but this year was super fun to watch. I hope it creates momentum to compete for the south every year.
Andy Avalos is very familiar with the Utah offense and USC provided him with a great blueprint.
I thought maybe with Ludwig and a renewed Whittingham Utah would not play the same arrogant football when punched in the mouth. They did. The same smash mouth football with little adjustments. That strategy works 80% of the time. Chris Peterson is a great coach because he recognizes when he’s outmatched and randomly throws some wrinkles into the offense to keep the defense honest.
No sweeps, except for a couple Vickers wide sweeps, the slant wasn’t there, the deep fade was difficult in the weather, the play that worked best for Utah was the delayed pass to the flat which they ran twice, both with success.
Oregon was stacking the box and forcing Utah to pass. Made them very one dimensional. They should’ve utilized Moss more as a decoy but the OL was getting blasted and any play action was snuffed out quick.
Oregon has better athletes, no doubt, but Utah was still in there. They stop Verdell on 3rd and 1 and get the ball back with 7 minutes and a possible tie was in the works. But with Blackmon and Hubert out an inexperienced Sewell was out of place and Verdell ran right by him. Ballgame
I think this is a pretty good analysis. I couldn’t believe how single minded we were about running into the middle. I say into rather than up or through.
Honestly Huntley had time and his stats were good until the O line quit entirely. Sacks were not because he was holding the ball too long. This loss wasn’t on the QB. Our line play and offensive calls this game.
Guess it’s going to happen though now and then. No pac 12 team has gone undefeated in 9 years for a reason.