My thoughts on the OSU game and why I’m ok with ARod:

[Utah]

1 – The weather sucked. The stadium sits at a weird angle that only makes everything worse. No one could throw, Troy had two early TO’s, so we shut things down and won the game. It is what Kyle does. He will let the offense do whatever they want…as long as they don’t turn the ball over. Once you start doing that, you are done. It’s defense and special teams time. 

2 – injuries are never an excuse…but sometimes they are. There are a lot of complaints on ARod because the offense was so bland. What ARod had to deal with was a new C, a RB who wasn’t with the team for a month, and a WR playing RB. Joe Williams wasn’t a hurt player who was with the team, in meetings, and progressing with the offense. He was a kid who was gone. No progression. Just that alone will limit the playbook. 

Then you add in a new C that just isn’t athletic enough, who never though he would be playing? That will limit the playbook. 

Also, I saw Bolles pull a few times to the opposite side of the OL where usually you have a G/C pull. One, that’s incredible for Bolles. Two, is that because of the C? If that is the case, that really limits what you can do in your trap/counter game. 

Which leads me to my next point:

3 – I think ARod did a GREAT job in the first half, and I think Utah shut it down in the second. To have Joe get 170+ yards rushing and Butler-Byrd get over 50 yards rushing? Wow. Fantastic. 

4 – Utah beat OSU up the first half. OSU didn’t quit, came back out fighting, and the weather improved. Don’t underestimate how badly OSU wanted to win that game for Gary. Gary’s players love him, and they know how great it would be for Gary to beat Utah. Why that doesn’t worry me for future weeks? 

Mora’s kids won’t fight for Mora like OSU’s players fought for Gary. 

5 – RED ZONE…what the HELL?!? If we can figure out the red zone offense…we will win out. If we can’t, we will lose to Washington and one other game. We have to figure that out. Makes you appreciate Tim Patrick. Also, is Smith not fully healthy? He was amazing vs BYU and SUU before getting hurt. Hasn’t been the same since. 

I think we beat UCLA. I think we beat Washington. Washington hasn’t been tested yet this year, Troy will want to show something, we gave Washington their worst loss at home last year, this game is on the road for Washington, and we will be healthier than we are now. We have to be. 

[Milton Vanderslice]

Great summary

[Anonymous]

1- Ok defense and specials teams time. I get it, and it got Tauteoli injured and Marcus Williams. Great job make them play every game every snap and this is what happens. EDIT: Yes injuries happen and you can only feel sorry for yourself. But leaning on the defense seems like a bad idea to me. If the object was to escape from Corvallis, limit your injuries and win the game you failed miserably. Lotulelei is playing dinged up but he hurt his hand playing all of those extra useless snaps while you sit on a 12 or 5 point lead.

2- This makes no sense. ARod is limited by the RB that was out of team meetings? Joe actually exceeds expectations and has the best game for Utah running backs on the season. But he is limited and still wants to twist the most out of that sponge so he rushes him 20 more times in the second half?
Nowakowski (SP?) actually has done pretty well. His snaps seem better than Dielman’s after two games and in his second start with bad weather he was ok. I think he graded out pretty good.

3- Did Arod do a great job? Going back to your second point I thought he was limited? So was it a fluke or a great plan? I am just confused how you go from he is limited but did an outstanding job in the same bullet. Personally I think this was more weather and how crappy OSU is. I will actually give Gary credit for the second half adjustments but stacking the box seemed like the good decision when a RB has been away from the game torches you and gets 7.5 a carry in the first half.

4-Gary’s players loved him so much they missed a hard first FG attempt and shanked the second gimmie badly. Also that snap by your long snapper in the first half? Man that is just a bad football team.

Mora has lots of problems. He made some really bad off season decisions and that post by Westslope from the Bruin board makes me feel blessed with the amount of problems Utah has had compared to UCLA. Just think if TWill becomes injured with Nowakowski and Huntley in that Zona game? Man that would be bad.

5- Your only point I can agree with. Utah hasn’t figured out the redzone. They thought maybe we give Huntley a package but he got a low snap from a green center. Ain’t going to see that package again. Go back to the Cal game when you could really tell this is a coaching issue not a player problem. First and goal Moss took a bad angle. He is a freshman I could see a freshman doing that. Why not Shyne? Coaching. Second and goal I have a witness. I called the play before it even happened to my friend I was watching the game with. Tight end sweeps to the right. QB is to extend the play WITH AN OPTION TO RUN IT IN HIMSELF! Stretch the play as far as you can and hell maybe TWill runs it in or he throws a touchdown. It is all angles so no way can the linebacker cover the run and the throw. TWill didn’t even look to stretch it far enough throws a catch able ball but once it leaves his fingers he wants it back. Moeai can’t stretch out far enough, can’t even jump high enough. Incomplete pass. Excessive celebration from Cal they think it is over. That is how dumb their defense is. BUT WAIT UTAH IS GOING JUST AS SLOW. They walk around like they already loss. Line up and run the play Cal has half their damn players running to the bench. Line it up and drive it in you have no time outs!! Nope just bitch to the inept PAC12 crew and let the playclock tick tock down.
So now what do you do for your final call? It has to be a QB read run or a dive. You can do it, Cal is awful up front. BUT you have been stopped twice by them on short yardage situations because they know your play call. Again Shyne seems like the best choice in this situation to me. Nope lets go with Moss, Moss makes the freshman read and falls almost a foot short. It isn’t just on the players that is coaching. Whitt seemed more concerned with getting jobbed on the timeout from the injured Cal player and excessive celebration.

What I want to see against UCLA? Some plays that set up your next play. I haven’t seen this offense make sense all season. They are running a spread option power run clock chewing monster of an offense. It doesn’t make sense and you can see why it falls flat on its face in the redzone. Utah had one time out in the Cal game final redzoone plays you should have made the play calls for your entire series in that single time out. I would like to see a little hurry up by the offense and less huddle up. Maybe if Utah had some sense of urgency in the redzone they wouldn’t allow an abysmal defense like Cal get ready for every single offensive play call.

[noneyadb]

This entire post screams youth…
Youth from inexperienced coaches down to the athletes.

[Anonymous]

Yep. Youth & inexperience = failure to execute.

They need to man up.

BTW that was Joe Williams career high performance as a Ute, so I’d hardly call it an excuse. He basically won the game for us.

Whitt pretty much implied in his pressed that they botched it with play calling that became too predictable. He said they basically ran Joe Williams out of gas in the second half.

[Anonymous]

A guy removed from the game for over a month would be gassed.  Joe isn’t even close to game shape. 

[GadValleyUte]

Exactly – A few weeks ago I asked “is A-Rod for real?” some of the play call limitations may have to do with injuries, but that goal line fail against Cal screamed poor coaching and bad play calling. 

[Puget Ute]

Professional coaches who actually know their stuff believe Aaron Roderick is a good coach. Dennis Erickson likes him, and that should be enough.

ARod is not the problem here, and he will get us to a solution.

Also, he does not call all of the running plays. A lot of those are on DE and Jim Harding. The line just whiffed a few blocks at bad times.

[Author]

Posts