So we had 499 yards total offense tonight.

[jamarcus24]

227 through the air, 272 on the ground
We had a 100 yard rusher and a 100 yard receiver
27 first downs
We won the possession battle by almost 10 minutes
Scored 37 points
Had a good showing in the red zone
And we only turned it over once.

All-in-all I’d say that’s a very good start for a very young offense.  Definitely much better than we’re used to seeing, especially for the first game of the year.

I was happy to see some balanced playcalling and I was pretty impressed with how Huntley ran the offense.  In 23 completions he connected with 9 different receivers.  We also had 5 different ball carriers tonight so it looks like there’s plenty of offense to go around.

I hear people dogging the O-Line a lot.  I seem to remember our O-Line last year (yes, the one with 4 NFL draft picks on it) having a worse showing against SUU than this year’s O-Line did tonight.  Tonight we averaged nearly six yards a carry.  They did give up three sacks, but I don’t think they had any false starts and I don’t recall them having too many (if any) penalties.  It seemed like most of our penalty yards were on the receivers holding downfield.  We lost a few battles in the trenches tonight, but overall I thought the O-Line had a good showing.

The only things I’m really bugged about are the awful, drive killing penalties and that we only had one sack and we only forced one turnover.  Hopefully those penalties on our receivers were more a result of them finally blocking at game speed and they get corrected right away.

Only one punt tonight.  Sorry Mitch, but I don’t think you’ll be bringing Utah a fourth consecutive Ray Guy award this year and that’s probably a good thing.  Your ability to kick the ball out the back of the end zone will be a nice trade.

Secondary looks athletic.  Jaylon Johnson is going to be a star.  So is Bradlee Anae.  Hopefully Kavika isn’t out for too long, but it’s nice to know that this year we do have a little depth at LB with Donovan Thompson and Cody Barton getting a lot of minutes last year as well as having the ability to play guys like Chase Hansen and Marquis Blair in the box.  Speaking of Blair, did you all see him blow that pulling guard up in the first quarter?  That was awesome.

Lastly, I don’t mind that we kept the starters in through the fourth quarter.  These guys need reps together and they need to learn how to close out games.  I’m just glad we got out of this week nearly unscathed.

Overall I’m pretty optimistic about the potential of this team.  This should be a fun year.

[cbmute]

Well said. I’m not sure what this team will be.  They certainly were not perfect tonight but I saw a lot to be excited about.  I was really excited to see Huntley have such a good completion percentage and look pretty accurate.  I think it is great he can run but what i really want to see is an accurate QB. There is a lot to be optimistic about.  

[UtMtBiker]

I wasn’t overly impressed to be honest. Sure he had an nice completions percentage (72) but most of those completions were within 10 yards of the LOS. He had 2 shots at long TD’s and both were over thrown. I know that everyone said that they were keeping the offense “vanilla” and I hope that is true but we aren’t going to win a lot of PAC12 games throwing 5 yard rub routes all day long. Going to have to take some shots and connect deep on occasion. I’m hopeful, but not impressed yet.

[FtheY]

I must have missed it. What happened to kavika? 

Also, Blair blowing up that block was AWESOME. 

[jamarcus24]

I didn’t notice it but people are saying he ended up on the sideline wearing a boot.

[2000Ute]

I haven’t rewatched the game yet but in my memory, Jaylon Johnson had one series in the second or third quarter where he defended a pass, had a TFL and then a sweet pass break up. Three and out all by himself.  I turned to the guy next to me and declared him player of the game.  

[Xanthis]

They didn’t go after Jaylon again all game after that series. He is going to be pretty good. 

[Author]

Posts