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Utah 6 Utes in this top 200 big board
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- This topic has 22 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 7 months ago by
UteThunder.
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rbmw263Participanti think the number of Utes drafted will get to 7 (Guidry) and if Bernard goes itd tie the high mark in players drafted in school history. Just 3 of the 8 from the 2017 class remain on rosters, which is where i think this class will separate itself
I think the lowest Ute on that top 200, Julian Blackmon, has a great shot at having the best career of any of them. Jaylon is the most likely, and Leki is the one with the highest floor/most likely to have a long and steady career
https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/jordan-reid-s-2020-nfl-draft-big-boardpositional-rankings
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Ute2ParticipantWill get drafted(in sort of particular order):
jaylon
moss
anae
fotu
burgess
jav
decent chance:
francis
blackmon (acl:(…. )
Might get drafted:
huntley
penisini?
Free agent/camp:
Paulo
thedford
nurse
Lewis
right?
all senior contributors may get at least a sniff? Remarkable.
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UteThunderParticipantRemarkable that they laid such a gigantic egg in the Pac-12 Championship.
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EagleMountainUteParticipantYou can see the growth though. Each year more and more talent passing through his fingers.
Utah is close.
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Yergensen
ParticipantI think this is the way we need to look at it going forward. Given our circumstances I think it’s a long-term and incremental process, not unlike the 80’s and 90’s Jazz. Moon shot improvements (us under Urban, Clemson under Dabo) are possible, but rare. Even winning the PAC12 the first couple shots we got was difficult/didn’t happen, but it’s difficult for most other programs too. As long as the coaches and players still in the program learn from these misses, we’ll be better off next time.
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UteThunderParticipant
If we were an NBA team, I would agree with this. But we are a college football team that loses ~25% of its roster every year. We don’t have the luxury of building around Moss, Anae, JJ, and all of the other NFL talent we lost this year. In a year when we have that many NFL caliber players on the roster, we have to cash in. If we can’t, then we will NEVER win the Pac-12.
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chinngiskhaan
ParticipantYep, I’ve been saying this for months. If we had so much NFL talent, how the hell did we lose so badly in the most important game of their lives? Absolutely pathetic, I’m still p**sed AF about it.
Personally, I’m glad they are all gone. I wish them all the best, but after the team laid that massive egg, I don’t have any desire to see these guys play in a Utah uni again. I’m not blaming them for the terrible game, most of these guys played hard… but man, I just can’t. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch any significant portion of any game from last year ever again. It still makes me waaaaay more angry than I should be.
In particular I’m glad that two of the hallandale Trio are moving on. One of those two performed admirably except when it mattered most, the other one got way more playing time than he ever should have. I’ll be happy to have a QB on the team that isn’t best buds with the worst wide receiver option on the field. Drove me absolutely nuts when Huntley would turn to Simpkins in a pinch. He was by far our least reliable receiver last year.
If the offensive line doesn’t take a massive step forward from day one Harding needs to be canned immediately.
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Tony (admin)Keymasterhow the hell did we lose so badly in the most important game of their lives?
OFFENSIVE LINE
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Participant
indeed. The offensive line was nonexistent in the two games that we needed to win the most. Like I said, if the offensive line isn’t noticeably better from day one, Harding should be fired.
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rbmw263Participant
here is an absolutely insane stat i just read thats relevant
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UtahParticipantBecause we have kids who may lack natural physical traits, like speed and length, but have worked their asses off and have become NFL level players. Probably not stars, some may not even have the chance to start, but they can fill out NFL rosters.
USC, Oregon and Texas…while their record may not be great, they have NFL stars on their team.
If anyone talks about how recruiting stars don’t matter and development is key…well, they aren’t necessarily wrong.
BUT, if you face a team full of 4 and 5 star kids and they WANT to beat you? They gonna beat you. Just look at us vs USC, Oregon and Texas. Those games were games that showed a motivated top 15 recruiting team vs a motivated top 30-40 recruiting team.
Recruiting matters and Utah needs to keep getting better and better at it.
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rbmw263Participant
in short, we’ve done an amazing job with what we’ve had to churn out good competitive teams. Just trying not to think about what we might be able to do with even “just” a consistent top 15-25 class…
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UtahParticipant
Bingo. You add Penei Sewell and another OL to last year’s team and the class is now around 20 and we are in the playoffs.
We are close. Oh, so close.
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Participant
that is not a comprehensive list of the senior contributors. Demari Simpkins was a contributor (way more of one than he had any right to be IMO). I’d be absolutely flabbergasted if he gets anything resembling a shot at the NFL.
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Ute2Participant
I think the problem was more acute then just laying an egg. I think 6 position groups were primed for a historic year and played like it.
1 was not. The o line. But it wasn’t that they weren’t good, they were just young. They mauled a lot of p5 competition this year en route to producing a GOAT running back. They were just too young to hold up against the elite of the elite. Good but young. The rest of the team was at the top of their arc of maturity. The oline was just at a different place in that arc. Bad timing. Bad luck having to play so many young dudes a year early.
Had empeys dad not spent a season at TDS as a rental, had the bodies of a couple med-retirees held up, it’d be a whole different story. That’s some real bad beats. We wouldn’t have Had to play freshman lineman. It’s crazy how good they were considering we played 2 freshman and a sophomore. That’s also remarkable if we’re being intellectually honest. Had we been able to run 5 upper class man out there….. oh boy, but it wasn’t in the cards.
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Tony (admin)Keymaster
Special teams wasn’t that good either. Not as bad as the O line, but wasn’t what we’ve come to expect.
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Ute2Participant
Yeah. We were so spoiled with that epic run of special teamers
I’m not sure any team in the country could possible expect a run like that ever again.
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Participant
Saying the offensive line was good is a massive overstatement. There were some guys that they could not stay in front of to save their lives. That offensive line was an embarrassment to Ute football during the only games that meant anything at all.
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Ute2Participant
No it wasn’t. They were great against 11 teams. And we play in the pac-12.
They were not an embaressment either. The oline started 2 freshman and a sophomore. And least in hindsight, let’s have a spoonful of reality if you don’t mind.
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salty-uteParticipantThey were not great against 11 teams. Go back and watch the film. Many film analysts were very critical of Utah’s O-Line all year long. Take a mid-tier G5 school for example, NIU. They absolutely shredded our offensive line. Moss’ ability to break tackles in the backfield was the only reason that we were able beat them on the ground. Huntley’s ability to evade pressure and his sneakiness in the pocket were the only reason he was able to be successful. The theme was consistent through the entire year. But only Oregon, USC, & Texas were able to exploit our O-line to the point where they shut us down.
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Ute2Participant
Utah was top 50 in sacks given up. And it was only that bad because of the outlier games where we all agree they were outmatched. Take away those two (Oregon and Texas) and it’s like a sack per game. Even leaving in usc. Huntley helped but no qb is magic. He had good protection(Oregon and Texas and usc aside).
If you have a crappy oline, two things DO NOT HAPPEN! You don’t field the all time single season rushing leader. And 2, you don’t have a qb where the fan base is pining for him to be a heisman finalist. Which we were. And that qb certainly doesn’t rank close to Joe burrow in pass efficiency. Which he did.
Point is this, 2019s o line was good. They weren’t elite. And it’s not cause they aren’t elite talents. They were young. So they got whooped around by elite units a few times.
4 of them will be back and they, Coronavirus willing, will grow into a very formidable group.
They weren’t embarrassing or garbage or unworthy of us fans.
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Participant
By, “the outlier games” you of course mean the games where we actually played teams with good defenses. We played 4 teams that had legitimately good defenses and we got our butts handed to us by 3 of them. Our offensive lines have not been able to stay in front of speed rushers for years now (think WSU’s Mata’afa, and Oregon’s whatshisburger from last year).
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Participant
There were some games where the offensive line wasn’t bad… but at no point in the season did they really show that they were good. The only times they did well were against teams with bad defenses. When we played teams that were solid defensively, they did a pretty terrible job of protecting Tyler. The only possible exception to that is against Cal.
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