Everyone Needs To Calm Down

[Utah5410]

It’s just an incredibly unlucky year. Last year too I guess bother still went 8-4 in a better league.

Couple thoughts and things that we just need to accept.

1. KW is never getting fired. He will leave when he is ready.
2. BYU is the luckiest team in CFP literally. There luck will run out either at the end of the season or next year. There staff will be torn apart.
3. Our D is still the foundation and plug n play. I don’t care how many guys we lose this year. The portal giveth and taketh. Plenty of starting jobs will be open and established guys will be kicking there chops.
4. Yes we need a QB, the good news is due to our D we just need a decent, competent QB. Let’s say an upgraded BB. That’s it. BB hasn’t played at all for USU (except against us) and the dude went 8-4 last year. I don’t count and could care less about the bowl game.

5. Whit or Scalley does need to clean house offensively. Get rid of all of them. Upgrade. Maybe keep Harding. Maybe.
6. Get shah the F away from ST. Either whit needs to take that back or hire someone.
7. HS recruits don’t really matter anymore it’s all about the Porto’s and we should have a ton of money. Just spread it around on undervalued no names who have experience (see ASU) and even vandy.
8. Next year we will get back to the underdog roll. Whit sucks in the Hunter mode. He is a killer in the “no body believes in us mode”. I believe hit does coach for one more year and we re-watch ish ugh football.
9. Finally. Get rid of the pre- madonnas. BYU is full of nobody’s, literally. We bring all of this talent and pay guys who bitch and moan when they aren’t getting there’s. Ugh Glover, Lyons, Jackson etc. get rid of them. Team culture snd chemistry go so much further so ISU, IU, KSU etc. we will never be much, OSU, GA, USC so let’s stop trying.

10. And 10. BYU lost that game refs bailed them out. Everyone but Zions acknowledge that so whatever. There best team in centuries had to basically have the refs win the game from them against our worst team in decades. And look how they celebrated. If I was a BYU fan of course I would take the win but I would’ve been livid. Realizing what I fraud team we were.

My hope for the rest of the year is we win one more game just to end the steak. But I could care less about going to a bowl.

BTW. Tons of dudes are going to enter the portal. And we will bring in tons of dudes. We will be fine.

Whit needs to handle his business with the offensive staff. Hell have Scally do it.

[The Miami Ute]

Love your passion…and understand where you’re coming from…

[lgt4141]

I like your optimism and agree with you. White has own bad season and we want to bring out the pitchforks. I don’t run k he wants to retire after losing to BYU and having a losing season. He has earned the right to retire when he wants. I do hope it is in the next deal or two and on a high.

[Larry B]

I’m going to give an opinion regarding number 10 and it isn’t going to be popular. But, take off your red goggles for a second and hear me out.

The flag against Vaughn WAS holding. There was an angle posted here earlier that showed him tug the jersey. Was it a blatant hold and was it consistent with how the refs were calling the rest of the game? Absolutely not. Joel Klatt said it best, it was a 50/50 call. Unfortunately, they called it. However, here is a list of reasons that we lost the game that had nothing to do with the refs:

1. BYU fumbled the ball twice and we couldn’t come up with either of them. If we jump on either of those, it’s likely a different outcome.
2. We had two back to back possessions in the second half that started at midfield. We weren’t able to move the ball 25-30 yards to even get into FG range. One more FG and it’s likely a different outcome. We didn’t score a SINGLE point in the second half.
3. Even after the holding penalty on Vaughn, BYU had to move the ball about 50 yards just to get a chance at a FG. The defense allowed it.
4. Calhoun had an Interception literally hit him in the hands. He dropped it. It would have ended the game.
5. This was actually a crucial one that I haven’t seen discussed. Late in the 4th, we had the ball and there was an injury timeout for a BYU defensive player. After the timeout, the game clock began running and the play clock reset to 40 seconds. Rather than huddle up and run some clock, the offense lined up and snapped the ball. There was a good 30 seconds that could have been run.

So yes, the flag on Vaughn was stupid and shouldn’t have been called in that situation IMO. But it was far from THE reason we lost.

[Anfernee]

The whole zero burger in second half is deserved of a loss unfortunately.

[Trailgoat]

Solid post.
Yup. KW > Utah football. KW stays as long as he wants and does whatever he wants, win or lose. KW goes 0-12 next year he keeps on coaching. Let’s be honest, Utah football being bad is really not that important to the University as long as fans keep filling seats and boosters donate $.

[SalUTEtheU]

I disagree with keeping Harding. That position group has been a MASSIVE disappointment this year. When Whit said it should be our strength, that position group has found a way to p**s down its own leg time and time again. There is talent, so my assumption is the coaching.

[AZUTE]

N/M

[AZUTE]

Don’t agree. Fano and Lomu at the tackles have been elite. Bernard is going to rush for 1000 yards you don’t that without good OL play.

Early in the season when Wilson was playing teams were bringing 8 or 9 guys on every play. No Oline is gonna stop that. It was on Ludwig to adjust play calling and he wasn’t.

Harding is a good coach and Utah needs to do whatever they have to with NIL to keep Fano and Lomu. Bookend Tackles that good are rare.

[Rick]

I am 100% in agreement with AZUTE. Our tackles are elite. The interior OL has had some issues but it is largely because teams have stacked the box and dared us to throw. We have no WRs that can get any kind of separation and our “elite” TE play has been suspect all season. Blaming this on the OL is pretty typical of people who never consider what the defense is throwing at them. 7-8-9 nine in the box with almost zero blocking help from your TE group is a disaster for any offensive line. 5 on 7, 5 on 8, 5 on 9 are impossible blocking scenarios. Until you get both a passing and running threat from the QB position, it will always be impossible. In the first half vs. BYU, we kept them somewhat honest due to Rose’s running threat which then also opened up some passing. When that got shut down in the 2nd half and we were essentially playing not to lose, that dynamic dried up.

Blame Harding if you must but you are placing the blame on the one and only area of our offense that has shown ANY promise this season. Micah will be a 1,000 yard rusher this season and you don’t get that without an effective offensive line. I am not saying they are perfect but look elsewhere for a scapegoat.

[2008 National Champ]

I disagree with both you and @AZUTE but only want to reply once. Hopefully this works for both.

@Sal: Between your 5 O Linemen and whatever TE’s you incorporate into your blocking scheme, you’ve got a lot of different skillsets. Some are more adept at run blocking, some pass, some are better lateral, etc. Very few at this level are good at everything. Nick Ford was a unicorn and he still had flaws. And substitutions further change the calculus on what plays should be called to exploit the strengths of your O line in any given situation.

@AZUTE: Not being able to run against 8 or 9 man boxes is a fallacy. Until spread offenses became a thing, every offense ran into 8, 9 and 10 man boxes. You try to help your offense out through formation shifts and motion but let’s remember that Whitt’s team have always prided themselves on being able to run the ball even when it’s obvious the defense knows it’s coming. i.e. with a lead in the 4th quarter

@Sal: Harding isn’t stacking blue chips up like cordwood but he has been improving the room through recruiting every year and has been able to get better performance out of his lines than recruiting rankings would suggest. @AZUTE is correct that the play calling has not always been to the benefit of the OLine’s strengths and that was a known weakness of Ludwig’s. Linemen don’t switch out during a drive so if the group on the field isn’t great at delayed blitz pickup, maybe don’t call 7 step drops or run directly into the obvious blitz zone.

And let’s not forget that for every player your team has on the field, the other team has a player trying to stop them from doing whatever they want. Sometimes the other guy wins. And usually it’s not because you p**sed down your own leg.

[DataUte]

I think it was Saban that was saying it is really hard to find OL now. With so many skill position camps, players are getting trained on that, so you have to recruit someone by their frame (and for him, they had to play basketball) and then you had to get them in, put 40-50 pounds on them and see how they handle it. So it was a little bit of a crapshoot. Getting 5-8 of these guys is hard work. Harding has done a decent job.

[2008 National Champ]

fully agree. Really, the only complaint I can come up with for Harding is that he’s not having the same success recruiting interior linemen as he is with tackles. Unless Garcia and Alderman can move inside, I’m not sure they will see the field until Fano & Lomu leave or get hurt.

Tackles get a lot of credit but elite guards are really hard to find. They need to be big enough to be road graders in the run game taking on 300-350 pound DT’s. They also need to be agile enough to pull on one play while releasing and getting to the second level to get to an LB or safety who is much quicker on the next play. In pass pro, tackles get by with their length against smaller DE’s but have a good idea of who they are blocking on any play. Guards have to be smart enough to recognize stunts and know when to pass their guy off so that they can pick up a blitzer coming free which is where Utah’s IOL has failed the last two years.

[MG_Ute]

Love this post. Well done. I get it’s been a rough couple of years but geez, we’re a healthy QB away from having two amazing seasons. My concern, as has been expressed by others, lies simply in not understanding why there is such a grand canyon drop off between QB1 and QB2. I get that QB1 gets most of the reps, but man – Cam goes down and we become at best a .500 team. I’m not OK with that and would like to see better results from QB2. The transfer portal has made this more difficult because if you’re a really good QB2 you can likely go start somewhere else and get some NIL money as well. Utah will be fine. Very few programs, short of the top 5 programs in the nation, can sustain success for too long. There are always ebbs and flows. Unfortunately, at the moment, BYU is flowing and Utah is ebbing and that’s a tough pill to swallow. But no one should be that surprised. Injuries happen and the universe throws weird stuff at different teams every year. I just hope we can right the ship before it sinks.

[Tony (admin)]

Maybe our best bet is to invest half the QB NIL to each of two “ok” QB’s instead of blowing it all on one good one. I don’t know anymore.

[Author]

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