Adjustments, or not

[Tony (admin)]

I know some football, but I’m no coach and I don’t claim to be one. That said, it seems that we lacked adjustments all over the place. Offensively we didn’t adjust to what AZ was doing defensively.  They were stacking the box and bringing the house on nearly every play to rattle Wilson. Ok, so if they’re doing that, then we should make them pay by calling plays that exploit them like screens, slants, quick passes to the areas vacated by their backers, or maybe even sweeps. Didn’t see any of that.

Wilson continues to improve, but the cat is out of the bag on how to defend him for now. Blitz the shiz out of him.

I would have kicked the FG on at least the second 4th and goal failure. That might have helped with some mo and keep things a little less out of reach later.

The refs didn’t beat us. They weren’t calling PI.  Ok fine. If that’s how it’s going to go in the Big 12 our receivers needed to get more physical then. Take advantage.

Our defense had many issues last night.  First off our linebackers seem lost. Poor positioning, poor tackling. Remember that one run for AZ up that huge hole in middle where they could have driven a truck through it?  I watched both our backers stunt to the outside on that play. Perhaps just an unlucky defensive call, or someone screwed up, or AZ read the play and adjusted.

We also had very poor contain on the outside, which allowed Fafita to buy more time. That lack of contain was a huge problem when their running backs would take their runs outside.

Our corners had to give big cushions, especially on that #4 receiver. That then allowed AZ to exploit us with quick outs and curls.

Tackling was not great on defense.

Credit where credit is due to Arizona though. They beat us soundly. Fafita is an amazing QB, the kind that is Utah defense kryptonite.

Our punt returns STINK this season. Very seldom do we seem to make positive yardage.

[The Miami Ute]

“Our punt returns STINK this season. Very seldom do we seem to make positive yardage.”

I’ve been saying the same thing since the second game. A traffic cone could do a better job than Pittman. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about losing yards on a return.

[Tednab]

We play not to lose, rather than playing to win

[Holladay Ute]

This is so true. It’s a win if we don’t lose yards on a punt return. Crazy.

[EagleMountainUte]

Utah WR were being aggressive in my opinion. But when you are making adjustments on the ball and the corner is early. It means they are early.

I actually think Utah defensive backs need to see that and then drape themselves all over a Zona WR. Utah gives them a nice two to three yard cushion. I would say Utah got away with one interference call but it was a double covered McMillan trying to back to the ball after Utah forced him out of bounds. That is all I really saw in aggression from the defensive backs. Big12 is fine with defenders it seems like. I noticed it against OSU as well.

Linebackers were pretty bad. Gilman had a nice film study open field tackle on McMillan.

I don’t really find myself being critical of the defense. It is just that same ole problem again with Whitt lead offenses. Terrible RedZone strategy and execution.

Utah has to score outside the 20 because they are incapable of strategizing against defenses.

[The Miami Ute]

I was getting flashbacks to the Florida game to open the 2022 season.

In that game, Utah had six trips into the RedZone and only got 13 points. Florida, on the other hand, only had three trips into the RedZone and cashed in for 22 points.

Whitt will never change…just recently I was reading some articles dating back to 2006, 2007, 2012, and 2014 and they all criticized Whitt’s offenses for the same things we’re mentioning now. Conservative playcalling, predictable running plays, failure to develop top QBs, a lack of in-game adjustments, etc…at this point, the sample size is so overwhelming that it would be madness to expect any changes.

Look for Utah to continue to lose 3-5 games a season (including the loss in whatever trash bowl game they end up going to) during the rest of Whitt’s tenure with the team.

[Holladay Ute]

This was driving me crazy too: they blitzed all night and it seemed like we never had an outlet pass. We certainly never had an RB screen pass available. It felt like we had the TE slant occasionally and that worked a couple of times, but then they figured out it was the only thing we were doing to counter their blitz. Maybe Isaac Wilson just wasn’t picking up on any of the blitzes and it was a classic true freshman game? Felt like the coaching staff could’ve put him in some better positions to succeed though. On a lot of those blitzes, it felt like our WRs were down field too much.

That was just a really bad game for Andy Ludwig. And horrible red zone efficiency after we knew that was a major problem last week. Based on the completely predictable red zone play calling, it’s almost like we didn’t even work on it in practice. Zero creativity or thoughtfulness there. And one of my biggest gripes about the game plan…when I was reading about Arizona earlier in the week, it seemed like the consensus opinion from experts (and even their own fans) was that their D line is the weakest unit on their defense. I mean, Kansas State ran all over them. So naturally, our game plan was to pass on them before we run on them (w/ a true freshman QB)? I think there had to be some arrogance in the game plan (and that showed up when we went for it on 4th down multiple times in the red zone). In Whitt’s postgame interview w/ Bill, he talked about how FGs are a “loss” in the red zone. I agree w/ that generally, but I also feel like it can be situational. I think Whitt was somewhat emotional about this rather than logical during the game. We are starting a true freshman QB…I would’ve for sure gone for it on 4th & 2 on the goal line. But I was sitting in my seat on the opening drive and told my friends it was a mistake to go for it on 4th & 2 from the 10. Just take the freaking points w/ your true freshman QB and let your defense play w/ the lead. It would’ve been a loss w/ Cam Rising under center (and I would’ve gone for it w/ him), but I would’ve taken the points w/ my true freshman QB on the opening drive.

Arizona did some delayed handoffs offensively and that killed us b/c, like you said, our linebackers have looked pretty lost. Those were some of the biggest holes I have seen from a Utah defense in a long time.

[RoboUte]

OC and HC are fossils. We are stupid to expect something they haven’t shown in 15 years.

[Charlie]

Adjustments are quite limited with a true freshman QB and a short play book. I think the game plan was too much like what would be expected with Rising. With a freshman QB we need to expect the defense to come after him until we punish a defense out of position. We needed more screens, quick 2 second routes, and roll outs to access the spots think with a crowded box. I noticed Wilson did best with quick passes and struggled after 4 seconds in the pocket. Utah just did not slow down the run blitz except with running plays that got past the first man.

On defense the contain broke down several times. Sometimes Utah gets too focused on sacks to the expense of outside contain. The got to have good communication with the LBers to take contain whenever that is not the first priority for the DEs. The LBers overrun plays several times, Barton is not yet in his grove. The pursuing defense requires someone stays to contain the middle of the field. Damuni was quite good at that, I look forward to his return, Reid as well. Shaw needs to help the DBs adjust to Big-12 play where more contact is allowed than in the Pac. The tall CB that mugged Lohner was a good example.

Hopefully we get most our missing pieces back for ASU and begin to look more like our old selves.

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