Vaki and our receivers

1. Vaki played and was in on several offensive plays, but he got very little touches. It was as if the coaches felt like he played too well against USC and didn’t want him to get too c**ky so they decided to shut him down.

2. Barnes missed a lot of open receivers. Vele was having a hell of a game and was getting open. Barnes just doesn’t seem to see the field very well and scrambles at the first sign of any pressure.

I agree with Larry. Open receivers everywhere. Barnes with time seems to flounder. Even with time and looking around through progressions he can’t recognize when someone is open or throw it into space to allow the receiver to go get it. Rather he seems doubtful, hesitates then panics and runs (usually backwards trying to get the edge with mixed success). Even when he got that ball to Vele, literally no one was anywhere near Vele and it would have been a walk in TD… But had to make a diving catch.

“One more year… One more year”

Vaki hit Cal by surprise and USC overlooked it. That was obvious as it played out. But if you watch someone else other than Vaki you see how bad Cal and USC were.

Barnes is bad. He is who he is. Jackson went down fairly early again. His high ankle sprain needs like 2 months to heal I would imagine. Once Barnes only had Vaki it was done. Sell out when he is in and blitz Barnes creatively.
Barnes can’t read beyond a single receiver. I think it was apparent on the 3 points Utah had to settle for. Vele was kind of covered but Barnes stepped up and threw it over the head of the receiver he focused on the entire time.

Barnes has a lot of heart. But this goes back to something @Utah pointed out. That huge pass Barnes opened the offense with against Florida. He actually threw to the wrong guy. The other guy would have scored as well but the more difficult one was the double covered one. Now it worked out but it is interesting. Barnes is the playground kid with the arm who said I am coming to you Johnny in the huddle. He will look for Johnny come hell or high water after he breaks the huddle. Now it will doom the play or Barnes will make it work with his feet. You can do that against s**t teams like SC and Cal. Oregon is really good. Top ten for sure. Last season they probably should have gone to the CCG if not for injury to Nix.

Edit: As far as receivers go but I think it would be incredibly difficult to not be Johnny after you break the huddle. Human nature being what it is you can’t help but know the ball isn’t coming your way.

As everyone said, he definitely played in the first half. Even on defense as well, to put it frank… he was a liability on defense this week, at least two of their first touchdowns were to his side of the field and he just didn’t have enough gas to get over and stop either of them. They took him away on offense and took advantage of him on defense. They need to play him on one side of the ball or the other. Other teams will see that now and take advantage of it

Vaki’s touches, afaik, were the same packages from previous weeks. Oregon would signal Vaki was on the field and key in on him, since they knew he was getting the ball. That included a safety being assigned man coverage. Vaki didn’t play a lot of snaps, which likely was because of Oregon’s offense shredding Utah’s defense early on. It seems despite Whitt’s comments earlier in the week regarding analytics, they wanted him playing on defense more.

Bottom line is we showed up with the same offense we had against Oregon St / Cal / USC. Oregon actually took us seriously and shut it down.

I feel bad for Jackson. He’s sorely needed, but he needs to rest. Us playing injured players makes me more sympathetic to Rising/Kuithe rumors and our coaching/medical staff potentially rushing people out there.

Wait a minute we have receivers!!!

Vaki saw much more daylight from Cal and USC, but Oregon is a much more disciplined defense. Oregon also had a big stout front that made all runs difficult. Vaki’s ad lib simply did not work with Oregon being very aware. On Barnes interception, Vaki made a move just as Barnes threw and the play had a negative impact on both. Playing both ways may have caught up with him as initially he had a couple of errors on defense.

Vele actually had a good game, the rest of the passing game struggled. Barnes stays on his first option quite long which is likely a function to so little playing time and lack of experience with good athletes. Oregon had done their homework in coverage and almost always had very good pressure.

“..who I think is a good passer…. who has had success in other games” that’s your problem right there. It’s hard to make sense of a flawed premise.

THE PIG FARMER WILL RISE FROM THE ASHES AND SHRED THE REMAINING OF THE DEFENSES ON THE SCHEDULE. VELE was the only recive getting opened, all the others were outmatched by the ducks DBs. That comment above about BB missing wide open receivers is BS. I can only think of one clear time when parks was wide open in the end zone, that is it

incorrect Emory Simmons dropped one he was wide open, two balls thrown his way, two balls dropped.