Yep. No question about it.
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I have to keep reminding myself how young we are. Vonte Davis goes down and we’re an all freshmen defensive backfield.
I’m surprised our line woes resurfaced.
Utes definitely did not deserve this game.
I hope the team learned something about playing four quarters and playing with the lead tonight.
Onward and upward.
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That might have been a preview of the conference championship game. Oregon State is tied for first with Oregon in the Pac-12 North. The Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State game) might determine which team wins the North. It would be nice to get a rematch against OSU on a neutral, indoor field and not in a torrential downpour (Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to the lay person). Utah’s goals are still there. It’s just one loss against a pretty good team. They still control their own destiny to win the South. Just gotta get that win next week against UCLA in Rice-Eccles. Remember, Arizona State ALSO still has to play @ Oregon State. The Beavers are undefeated at home. In fact, including Oregon State, all 3 teams Utah has lost to this year won today. The combined record of the 3 teams they have lost to is 18-4, and all 3 losses have been on the road. Utah’s strength of schedule has gotta be Top 10 in the country. Oregon State is a quality opponent for sure.
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In fact, even Weber State did something today. They won @ Eastern Washington, who was previously undefeated. Yes, the Wildcats are only 3-4, but Utah has played an absolutely dynamite schedule this year. Their combined opponents’ record is now 33-18. USC and Weber are the only two of their opponents who have losing records, and both of them are 3-4. Check back tomorrow, but I’d bet Utah’s strength of schedule is Top 10 in the country when the new rankings come out.
Time to move on from the loss, but it boils down to two 4th and goal failures and a blocked punt. 21 points.
There was more, obviously, but those 3 plays are a dramatic swing.
Every game is its own story, we still control our destiny, time to bounce back, work hard, get ready to defend RES.
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Sorry guys. I haven’t watched many of the games lately, but I saw the halftime score so I thought I’d check in. Then after that first series of the second half, I turned it back off. Too late. I jinxed it.
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Naw, the story of the game was the beavers Oline dominance. Start to finish they pretty much could score at will.
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I have to say that I’m left wondering what happened to our ST? Utes had been so good for so long that it’s weird to see the fall-off. Shah is now coaching ST? He needs to spend some time to improve that unit.
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The blocked punt for a score was big. But with the way things were going, who’s to say OSU wouldn’t have scored in a 7- or 8-play drive anyway had the punt not been blocked?
That’s a major storyline, certainly. Beavs went for 260 on the ground, 20 over their average, and 208 in the air on 14 receptions.
If we truncate Baylor’s 68 yarder into a 20 yarder, they’re under their rushing average and over on passing average, which is what I thought would happen.
We ended up with 455 yards of offense, they had 468. (Seems worse than that, right?)
They had a BYE week, we were coming off a highly emotional win against a division rival. I thought they’d put a lot of work into a good game plan, and they did.
Rising was 22/36/267, 2 TDs, should have been at least 3, maybe 4. Nolan was 14/19/208, but some enormous throws downfield.
Punt protection has been a concern all year. They schemed that well.
A really good team with a BYE, vs a really good team on the road, I could live with a shootout. We just didn’t make 2 plays that would have been the difference.
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We should have and could have won the game but OSU outplayed us. Simple as that. We’ll learn and move on. And remember: This Utah team is very good and very young.
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That’s something I’ve been wondering. With the speed the Utes have on the outside with Dixon and Howard, why is the offense not stretching the field more? All week I’d been reading about OSU’s vulnerability in their DB’s, but we didn’t seem to exploit it enough. Just a thought, throw deep more often. Loosen the D up a bit.
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We finally saw Dixon do his thing, but otherwise Howard has been nursing an ankle, came out again. Vele is becoming the #1, hands down.
They were in a Cover 2 and doing a lot of zone in the middle, with a lot of athletic guys, highly amped up. (I couldn’t believe Grant was angry at his targeting. That was obvious. He was a rabid dog.)
I think Rising had trouble reading what they were doing over the middle, they were trying to take away our TE middle game and did a good job of it, so we were going to the perimeter a lot. The proof that they were doing all kinds of crazy ■■■■ in coverage was that Rising did a lot of damage with his legs.
I have to hand it to their DC, who really, really knows what he’s doing, has coached in the NFL - he put together a great game plan, has a lot of athletic guys playing with great energy. The BYE makes that look easier than it is, but still.
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That’s what we are missing in the defensive backfield, a Marquise Blair type player. I think Cole Bishop could be that guy. Blair would lower the boom, and we don’t have that at the moment.
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Latu can bring it, but he’s still playing not to target. The other thing about Latu is he gets confused in coverage. The slant to a wide open WR was a FR error.
Marks had a tough game, but there’s no time to hang your head. UCLA lost a pivotal game, but Saturday will be another battle.
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Josh Newman:
The Devin Lloyd targeting call
I don’t know what targeting actually is, you don’t know what it actually is, no one seems to know what it actually is.
Here is the NCAA rulebook on targeting: “takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or legal block or playing the ball.”
With Utah leading, 31-28, late in the third quarter, Lloyd was ejected for targeting on a play in which he led with the crown of his helmet. At the moment, the call seemed legitimate and there wasn’t much of an argument. Whittingham felt differently.
“I didn’t,” Whittingham said when asked if he thought it was targeting. “His head was down, he was trying to get out of the way of the quarterback’s head and avoid the helmet-to-helmet. It’s a shame that it was called. Maybe I’m wrong, that’s my opinion. As he was trying to get under the blocking, he did duck down, and the helmet was involved in the tackling, but it wasn’t helping him.”
That targeting ejection includes a steep price as Lloyd is now suspended for the first half of the UCLA game. Utah not having its best defensive player available for two quarters against a capable, explosive offense being steered by a veteran quarterback in Dorian Thompson-Robinson is less than ideal.
I’m pretty worried about UCLA. I hope the Utes figure out a way to deal with a strong running offense.
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What’s become of Solomon Enis? He made an appearance Saturday. But his number is not a favorite target for Cam Rising. What’s up?
Yes. UCLA will be just as motivated, if not more, as the Utes on Saturday. Oregon State peeled back another layer of issues in the Freshman heavy Utah defense.
On Lloyd, when that play occurred, I thought to myself, that will be called as targeting. It was. Lloyd one could argue lowered his head to avoid hitting the OSU QB in the head. Okay, I can accept that. Only Devin did not need to lead with the crown of his helmet. He could just as easily wrapped up Noyer with his head to one side. And actually, Devin by leading with the crown of his helmet put his own health at risk, of a neck compression or even fracture. I believe the reason this play was called targeting was because just prior to contact, Devin did lower his head, and directly used the crown of his helmet to “spear” Noyer in making the tackle. Clearly, its a judgement call and the guys in stripes on the field make that determination. What we think, what the coaches think, what the sports writers think matters not.
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This team has 3 losses. Yes, they’re still alive to win the division and conference. There’s a lot to motivate them. There are still goals ahead. Good for them.
But…I don’t worry about them. I’m just going to enjoy watching them grow. I’ll emotionally invest in them more next year. I’ll be expecting a lot more from them then.
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I haven’t seen the Lloyd play - but I agree that targeting seems like such an arbitrary call sometimes.
I get that you want to protect QB’s and defenseless players. And I get that they want to keep it as objective and much as possible so that refs are less likely to subjectively change the outcome of games.
That said - too often I see players get hit with a targeting call when it is clear that they were not attempting to make contact with the helmet, but the offensive player ducked into it. Or they look to be going at someone to take them with a shoulder, but the offensive player shifts and they hit them with the crown. I don’t know how they fix that while remaining objective - and I’ve had people tell me that either way, punishing these hits is intended to reduce injury so unintended illegal hits are worth punishing too, to protect players from the others.
Not sure I agree completely. But I’m also not sure what the right answer is.
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