(Blue) Where o where has red gone?

Dear Red,

It has been several weeks since you last spoke to me, and I have to know, was it something I did? We used to have such good times. The laughs, the tears? Is it because we no longer will be in the Mountain West Conference? Is it because you are no longer in the BCS run? (Is it because TCU is mean?) I know they are, I understand. But c'mon red, get back in the game. Talk to me. You complete me!, you are the Yin to my Yang! You are the Country to my Rock n Roll!
I hearby dedicate this song to you, come back to us Red. There is life after TCU.

Love,
Blue

To the matter at hand. Saturdays game was as good as BYU has looked all season. Granted, it was just against those oh-so-poor Rebels, but still. Defense has gotten considerably stout under the care of Coach Mendenhall and it's good to see the retarded 'bend but don't break' philosophy scrapped. Blitzing, pressure, aggression... these are the things that warm my heart. Offense also came through for a first time. Heaps finally had the game we've all been hoping he could have. There was running, there was passing, there were touchdowns and 3rd down conversions and controlling of the clock. Good good good. Problem is that we haven't won on the road this year and the next game is in cold Colorado. We're favored to be better, but the teams look even. Freshman QB's on both sides, more success at home than away, and other such similarities. This game should be a good indication of whether or not we're growing in the right direction on all fronts (I'm looking at you offense). We'll see Saturday.

As for the U... it's probably still too soon.

(Red) Perseverance on the front range.

This is going to be a smaller post, I want to rewatch the game to get a little better feel. However, I watched pretty much the last quarter and a half and I hope we see that team all the time. Yes Blue was right, the Utes did play lackluster and if it were not for some picks the game would have been different. Same thing if Max Hall had not of thrown all the ints versus FSU. Turnovers are part of the game and RoJos picks were not your typical interceptions. It's not like he was just standing there and him thrown to him. He had to make plays on the ball. With Utahs lackluster effort they did put up 450 yards of total offense, while Terrance Cain threw for 250 yards, 2 TDs, and a 75% completion percentage. And after the 2nd half started Cain was 12/13, and that 1 incompletion was on a drop in the end zone by Aiona Key. So Cain played perfectly in the second half. He also ran for 71 yards. He has showing some very much Brian Johnson like traits in that second half. The key point of the game was right after CSU scores and they are up 17-3. Immediately Utah gets the kick off to around the 40 yard line on a good return. Play one Cain runs for about a 10 yard gain on a scramble. The next play Cain rolls to the left and hits Reed on a 50 yard td pass over the arms of a DB. Just a few plays later Robert Johnson gets his first pick when he doesn't fall for a play action pass to go deep. Right after that Utah goes on a 17 play 70 yard drive to tie the game. A lot of teams down 14 points would have gave up, this Utah team had a lot of fight and basically took over the game and beat down CSU in the last quarter and a half. Really outside of the 2nd quarter and the first half of the 3rd Utah played well. The first quarter they had 140 yards but only 3 points. Had a problem punching one in. But in the last part of the game they had no problems at all. Eddie Wide had 103 yards on 17 carries and between him, Cain, Shaky Smithson, and Sausan Shakerin the Utes will have a solid running game with out Matt Asiata. Cain is a great runner and can throw on the run as well. David Reed 140 yards receiving, some good runs as well. And Cain had his best day yet statistically and helping lead the team back for a win. The defense was good and bad throughout the day. They got to the QB and forced turnovers, they just let a guy run for 100 yards. Which will happen from time to time but something I'd like to see cleaned up a little bit. Yeah they were sloppy at times, thats to be expected off a bye week. But once they got everything together they weren't to be stopped. I figured CSU would fight with it being their homecoming and also like I stated, Steve Fairchild is a damn good coach. But like I predicted, the Utah athletes would win the day. And they did. Basically if the Utah team that played in the 2nd and first part of the 3rd shows up consistently they lose to the upper tier MWC teams. If the team that shows up that fought back. They can win this conference title. Developing consistency is now the key.

As for BYU vs UNLV I wasn't really able to see the game outside of a few highlights, but BYU did what they were supposed to. UNLV has given up it appears on the season and their coach. Hall didn't throw a pick, which is a first this season. I know BYU did struggle on occasion with the UNLV athletes, which is still the achilles heel of BYU.

Prediction and preview of Utah/UNLV to come later. I do think the Utah D will be the best Vegas has seen to this point though.

(Red) Week 6 - Utah (3-1) vs. CSU (3-2) Preview

Utah is 4-0 under Coach Kyle Whittingham after bye weeks as head coach. I really do not expect that trend to change this year. Colorado State comes back home for their homecoming game after a tough loss (for the MWC as well) at the hands of perennial power... Idaho? They did lose 31-29 on the road. They gave up over 300 yards passing and over 100 yards receiving to 2 receivers. They also had a problem on third down, converting only 5-13 on the day while allowing Idaho to convert 50% of their third downs as well as a forth down. So they couldn't stay on the field when they needed and they couldn't get a stop when they needed. Not exactly a good day for the Rams.
If those stats hold true for the next game the Utes should do well. Utah right now is ranked #1 in the conference in total yards averaging over 430 yards a contest. Colorado St is giving up almost 350. CSUs run defense does seem rather stout at averaging about 2.8 yards a rush. However Utah is going to be the fastest team CSU has seen to this point, with a very mobile QB. I think the Utes may meet resistance rushing up the guy but I don't see them having any problem getting to the outside with Eddie Wide, Shaky Smithson, as well as T-Cain. I do see Terrence Cain having a big day through the air however because of the speed of the wide outs, David Reed and Jereme Brooks in particular. Cain is completing 60 percent of his passes on the season, and that is with a really bad Oregon game hurting his stats. So he is efficient with the ball, and he only has 4 picks up to this point. His favorite passes, the slant passes, should be there all day long. I do expect to have CSU game plan for this but I do think Utahs athletes are just to much for the CSU defensive backfield.
On defense Utah has the best third down defense in the country at about 19% conversion against them. CSU struggled with third downs last week against Idaho so I expect the strength of the Utah defense to capitalize on getting off the field and some 3 and outs. They are also starting to make plays with turnovers. They have something like 7 or 8 turnovers in the last 2 games. So the defense is stiffening and playing very well right now. The Utes are also leading the conference in pass efficiency defense. So even with the corners struggling with some routes the Utes have done a good job of getting to the QB and making them shorten their reads. CSUs QB Stucker has a 54% completion percentage so not a huge threat through the air, however he does have the capability to go deep from time to time. CSUs O line is the most experienced in the country so that is a big plus for them. I think the speed of the Utah rush has to get to them to really make Stucker flustered, and I do expect the Utes to make him beat them. They will eliminate the run, which they are doing a great job of right now.
Overall since it is homecoming I do think CSU puts up a fight and they don't want to lose 3 in a row and I expect it to be rather close because Steve Fairchild is a really good coach. But the athletes for Utah are just to good for CSU and Utah is gelling nicely in very positions.

Utah 31 CSU 17

(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