(Red) Back to winning... but at what cost?

The Utes started another winning streak this last Saturday after handling Louisville. Easily the most complete performance of the year for the guys in Crimson. First off the defense. The defense has been a little maligned this year after giving up some big plays to the first 3 opponents. The coaches took the defense back to basics and it excelled. Utah only gave up 80 yards on the ground, the week after giving up 200 vs Oregon. The only substantial rushing yards Louisville got was off their Qb and his scrambling. The front 7 shut down the run all day long. In the pass game they gave up 180 yards. I'll take that any day of the week. The DBs are struggling a little bit right now, they are still developing but they are making progress. They have the speed to run with any wideout in the country, now they need to develop their ball skills. So often they are stride for stride with the receiver but they never look back to find the ball. I know this is a Coach Whitt philosophy, and traditionally that has improved as the year has progressed in the past. I expect that to be the case this season. The safeties are just studs. Robert Johnson is without a doubt the best safety in the league. He is always around the ball and making plays. This game he recovered a fumble by throwing it in the field of play so it could be recovered by his teammate, very similar to what happens in basketball when someone saves the ball. And the linebackers are playing awesome right now too. Sly is always in the back field, and Kepa Giason and Mike Wright teamed up on a play where Kepa tipped a pass in the air and Wright picked it off deep in Louisville territory. The front 4 were plugging holes and pressuring the QB all game. Koa Misi is 100% and it shows. He was running down running backs and wide outs all game long when they tired to run laterally. He caused the fumble that RoJo recovered by chasing down a wide out on a sweep and stripping the ball. He also has some slobber knocking hits. The one negative on the line is the loss of Lei Talamaiveo. He broke a bone in his leg and could be done for the year, that definitely hurts the depth. The Dline is deep though so i'm not all that worried.

Special teams look to be stabilized. Luke Mathews is going great fielding punts, his only problems were last game was he didn't follow blocks on returns when he could have busted off some big ones if he would have. So frustrating watching that. Our Punter Sean Sellwood is a stud. Very Louie Sakoda like with his punting. He kicked some bombs in this game. Like him a lot. Blocked a field goal to open the game, which swung the momentum of the game, that is now 3 blocked kicks this year (2 punts, 1 fg), and we were getting close to punts all game long. And for FG kicking, looks like Joe Phillips has grabbed that job. He kicked a great 48 yarder before half that was big.

Offense was explosive but hit or miss. They opened up the game with a 3 and out. But after the blocked FG they marched 80 yards for a TD on a Matt Asiata 24 yard TD run. After the RoJo fumble recovery Cain hit Reed on a 50 yard TD pass just a few plays later. Cain actually started the game 9/9 and was very effective. Overall for the game Cain was 17/22 for 202 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT. He really let the game come to him and he played great. The rushing game was also very good, even when Asiata went down. Eddie Wide ran for 120+ yards on 19 carries. He averaged almost 7 yards a carry. He ran very good out of what Utah called the "Asiata Formation". Thats just a direct snap play, and he ran very well. When I was at the game it didn't look like he was getting much on most carries but rewatching the game he was getting good chunks of yards every time he touched the ball. He may have lost yards only a few times. Cain ran the ball very nicely too, mostly on designed runs. But he ran great and gave the defense a lot of problems since they had to defend him running as well. I will address the new running back situation in a different post. The wide receivers played so much better in this game. They redeemed themselves after a bad Oregon game. Aiona Key got into the action a little more which is good. David Reed was a stud as always. Jereme Brooks had a great 3rd and 15 play that got the Utes a TD after receiving a swing pass from Cain and making some tacklers miss.

Play calling was very good in this game. I can see Dave Schramm (Offensive Coordinator) evolve as a play caller. He simplified things for Cain a little bit to help him develop and Cain flourished. I'd still like to see the wide outs get some more running plays on sweeps and such, but I figure that is still to come.

Overall a very pleasing game (minus some injuries).
The question is was the game to costly with some season ending injuries? It is part of the game, and I will analyze the impact of the Asiata injury in a different post.
Next week : BYE


Colorado St vs BYU - I was not able to watch this game at all so I'm going off statistics and some second hand information. I know BYU jumped out to an early lead due to a lot of errors on CSU. A great blocked punt really helped. Max Hall did throw 2 interceptions. I do think that is 15 interceptions he has thrown since last years Utah game. 15 picks in 6 games is a cause for concern. BYU did score though, there is never question if they are going to score. One stat that is startling was 117 yards of penalties. The combo of penalties and turnovers are a concern. They penalties are something that can be fixed. The defense also gave up over 400 yards of offense to CSU. Now I don't know how those yards were obtained but those are a lot of yards to a non Spread offense team. And 370 of those yards were through the air. BYU needs to fix that quick, just like the turnovers, because some of these MWC teams can move the ball. Namely TCU and Utah. I don't expect BYU to lose to the second tier MWC teams but they need to work on those issues to be competitive with TCU and to beat Utah. Again my opinion on the game is kind of weak because I didn't see it but the stats weren't great. But hey a win is a win and that's all that counts. And for that BYU and Utah are both 3-1. Right where I expected both teams to be at this point. I do expect a lot of improvement from both teams over the coming weeks.
Next Game USU-
I expect BYU to win this game pretty easily. I do think USU will give them a scare for a while but BYU will score a lot of points on them. USU has a good back that will give BYU some problems and Gary Andersen is a genius and will come up with some looks to confuse Max Hall, but like in the Utah/USU game USU doesn't have the horses yet to win, but it may be interesting for a while until BYU pulls away.
45-21 BYU