How many more “wake-up” calls do you need to see before finally considering that perhaps this team just isn’t as good as you want it to be? They are capable of very good things, especially when the opponent plays the same way they look on film (USC, UCLA, Stanford). And they struggle against opponents who are willing to vary their schemes on both sides of the ball and have a reasonably mobile QB (parochial school, SDSU, OSU).
It is not a knock on Utah to say that it is a young team that is still learning how to play, especially on defense. The talent is there but the execution in not at a championship level, yet. Utah is benefitting from a mediocre South division, and conference as a whole. With every game I keep adjusting my expectation for 2022 up because it has been a great learning year. But 2021 Utah is not a finished product by any means.