Tuesday, October 19. 2010Red, Blue And Pigskin
They say a head coach isn't truly happy unless he has something to gripe about with his team's performance. After playing two really clean games against San Jose State, and Iowa State coach Whittingham should be ecstatic this week as he will have plenty to complain about after an unimpressive performance by the Utes. While his Utes were exposing holes in their game, their rivals from down south were doing the same against TCU.
Elsewhere around the country, the final games before the release of the official BCS standings, became shakeup weekend. Three top 10 teams lost, two of them to unranked teams. For the second straight week one of those three teams was the #1 overall team, as the Buckeyes lost to the Badgers. Air Force, Nevada, and Oregon State all dropped close games late in the evening/early morning. The Beavers going to double overtime before losing. Lackadaisical in Laramie
The Utes went to Wyoming, for the last time, possibly ever, and came away with a 30-6 victory. During the process of the game, the Utes extended a shutout of Wyoming, that started at halftime of last year's game, to 5 quarters, and 49-0. While the score looks okay, the win wasn't as great as one would hope. First off, Utah loses the battle with TCU and Boise State, who both happened to beat Wyoming by 45. (Good news is Utah tied with Boise State with both having 48 point victories over San Jose State.) Secondly the offense had it's struggles. Specifically QB Jordan Wynn. Wynn threw three interceptions, two of which were bad throws towards the back of the end zone. This now makes 3 of Wynn's interceptions this season, that were supposed to go to the back of the end zone, but ended up under thrown (1 vs. Pitt, 2 vs Wyoming). This is a bit unsettling. When in the red zone and getting close to scoring, the room to throw a pass decreases. That's why a lot of teams have started to favor the fade route. The thing is, whenever any QB is making a throw to the back of the end zone, the ball needs to be either at the back of the end zone, where only his WR can catch it, or 5 rows up in the stands. Under throwing the ball in that area is only begging for an interception. So far, Wynn has shown the inability to correctly make this particular pass. I don't know if he misjudged the throw, was in a hurry, or if he is currently unable to physically make the pass, which is a difficult pass to make. Until he proves otherwise, the offense needs to stop calling the play. The INT's weren't the only issues with Wynn this week. All game he didn't seem quite as decisive as normal. This helped lead to the first 1st string sack the Utes had given up all season. Wynn's slow, erratic play was made even more disappointing by the fact that on the first drive, he connected with Luke Matthews, on a flea-flicker, for a 45 yard td pass, and it looked like this was going to be another 50 plus point output. That was also the end of the creative play calling for the day, as the rest of the week, they went with a more basic game plan. The good news for Utes fans, is that all week since the game ended, the main thing that Wynn has talked about is how he is not satisfied with his performance last week. That's good, and hopefully that means he will fix the issues. He better, because we all know Whittingham isn't satisfied with Wynn's performance either. The gameplan this week had some changes from previous weeks. Firstly, there was an obvious focus on the run. And it worked, as the Matt Asiata had his best game since coming back from his knee injury. Asiata accounted for 109 of the Utes 188 rushing yards on the day. The Utes had a dominant 5.1 yards per carry average. Defensively, the Utes started slow. Wyoming QB Austin Carta-Samuels was able to escape the Utes pass rush multiple times to run for decent gains. Samuels had rushes for 43 yards on the first two drives in the first quarter, before the defense finally woke up and was able to stop him in the back field. After Wynn's first interception, ACS was able to drive from the Wyoming 20, down to the Utah 21. Fortunately for the Utes, the Cowboys missed the field goal. After that the Defense woke up. In the 2nd quarter, Wyoming ran 11 plays, and netted a total of 4 yards. On the day, the defense gave up 67 rushing yards, and 183 total yards. However there was one number that glared out at Coach Whittingham. 0 Turnovers forced. The one area of concern on the Utes defense is the lack of takeaways this season. On the year, they are -6 on the season in turnover margin. This is an abysmal number. This is not the number of a winning team. Part of it is caused by the offense being careless with the ball, but the other half is the defense must start forcing some turnovers. On special teams, Shaky was his normal self. He didn't get into the end zone, but he consistently had great returns in the punt game, helped greatly by some tremoundous, solid, sound blocking by the punt return team. It's too bad, that Shaky is a senior, because he is unbelievably fun to watch. The good news though, is that the Utes may have found his replacement, and have started grooming him, for next season. Dunn Deal The second wrinkle to the offense, was a new formation for an old play. One of the keys of the Ute offense is the zone read handoff. This week however, they added in a fake handoff to super speedster Reggie Dunn. Dunn is arguable the fastest player on the Utes. His first career touch, and the first play of the San Jose State game, Dunn ran a reverse 43 yards for a TD. The next game against Iowa State, he asked the coaches to let him return a kick. They relented. He repaid them by taking it 103 yards for a TD, including bursting through a very small hole between two Cyclone defenders, with speed that was amazing to watch. The Utes have said they are looking for ways to get him the ball, it was obvious, as they ran the new wrinkle with the fake reverse multiple times in the first half. It was obvious they were setting the defense up. Sure enough, eventually they faked to the running back, and let Dunn do is thing. 19 yard gain. They tried it on the next play as well, and unfortunately the play didn't get much of a gain, because of an issue with Dunn handling the hand off. But what made that play interesting was that even having to take time to recover the hand off, he still managed to use his speed to make a defender miss. Final Tuneup This week the Utes will play the last team they can win, with a mediocre performance. Sure Colorado State is coming off of a 43-10 victory, but that victory was against UNLV. Colorado has only won 2 of their last 16 games. However those two wins have been in the last 4 weeks. While the Rams may finally be starting to get back to where it looked liked they would be early in Coach Steve Fairchild's tenure, this game is still nothing more than a final tuneup as the Utes prepare for the gauntlet that is their final five weeks. After a win against Pitt that was filled with many issues, the Utes spent the next few weeks fine tuning their game before the bye week. After yet another lackluster win against Wyoming, the Utes have fine tuning to do again. Part of the issues against Wyoming could have been caused by the lackluster competition. Utah should win this game, however CSU can be a bit dangerous. This is the team that kept TCU to 6 points in the first half, before lose 27-0. The Utes need this game to be more like New Mexico, and San Jose State, and less like the Wyoming game. I would also expect to see the Utes maybe attempt a couple unorthodox plays this week. The Utes open up as a 31 point favorite. They will need a huge margin of victory to impress voters, but more important than covering the spread, is to do it in spectacular fashion. A Stupid Controversy Even after BYU wins a game, they can't make it through the week without controversy. This week the big deal was made about a blown call during BYU's final TD drive. During the drive J.J. DiLuigi fumbled the ball. It was clearly a fumble. You could tell it was a fumble live as it happened, and it became even more obvious when you watched replays that clearly showed the ball coming out long before DiLuigi hit the ground. For whatever reason the officials on the field initially missed the call. While terrible, bad calls happen every game. That's why we have Instant Replay. Inexplicably the replay officials determined the play would stand. It really is inconceivable how anyone could watch the replay. The MWC agreed, suspending 3 members of the replay booth for missing the call. And that's where the controversy begins. It was later determined that one of the members of the replay booth was a BYU employee. Before the game, the MWC did not have any rules against employees of the home team working in the replay booth. Idiotic. Even the perception of impropriety cannot exist. The MWC was just begging for a missed replay to cause a hail storm because of this rule. The fact that the BYU employee was in the booth was not his fault. It wasn't BYU's fault. It falls squarely on the MWC. It shouldn't have taken this mess to make the MWC make a rule against such a thing. However, the BYU employee being in the booth did cause a stir. SDSU fans have jumped on that fact, and cried foul. One buffoonish sports talk personality in San Diego went even further calling the entire BYU institution dishonorable, and claiming that the fans are racist. However, harping on that one call, and it really was a bad call, misses the big picture. By focusing on that one play, a play, by the way, that also included two facemasks by the SDSU defense, fans, and media are excusing the Aztecs for the rest of the game. The Aztecs were behind in the game, not because of that fumble, but because BYU had outplayed them. SDSU was not ready at the beginning of the game. But because everyone focused on this one play, all the other issues were excused. This is true for any fans that harp on officials. Constantly complaining about bad spots, or what should or shouldn't have been a penalty, or complaining because there isn't a good angle for a replay review only helps to excuse poor performances by a team. Rarely, has a blown call every cost a team a game. Calls are not made in a vacuum. Yes it's okay to mention bad calls, but constantly harping on them, or complaining about every single bad call that happens in the game, especially when you ignore favorable calls that went your way, is the sign of ignorance. It also shows that you don't hold your team accountable for what it does on the field, that put them in a hole to begin with. Not All Blowouts Are Built The Same The score may be similar to the past two seasons, but this season 31-3 loss by the Cougars to TCU isn't nearly as bad as the previous two seasons, at least defensively. Defensively the Cougars still had the same emotion and fire that they re-discovered last week. For the first time all year, TCU failed to score on their first drive at home. At the end of the first quarter it was only a 3-0 game. It was still a 3-0 game late in the half, before TCU finally was able to manage some offense and scored a late half TD to make it 10-0. Jake Heaps then threw a terrible interception, to set up an easy TD to make it 17-0 at the end of the half. The Cougars defense then held TCU scoreless in the 3rd quarter, while snapping TCU's two game shutout streak with a field goal of their own. If you had told BYU fans that going into the 4th quarter, they would still be in the game, which they were only down 14 points, they would have been happy. However, in the 4th quarter, TCU showed that it has better players, and finally wore down the Cougars, with two more TD's, including a "Screw you, we need style points, enjoy independence, hope the door hits you on the way out" TD at the end of the 4th. The Horn Frogs faced 4th and 3, with 4 minutes to go in the game. With the outcome already wrapped up, they decided to go for it, and threw a TD pass. The past two years, TCU was the better, more athletic team from the start. BYU's defense had been beaten almost from the beginning of the game. This year, the defense actually had signs of life, and it wasn't till the 4th quarter, that they really began to show that they were outmatched. The Offense On The Other Hand BYU's offense was Jake Heaps was terrible, rarely looking down field. He completed only one pass to a WR. On the few times he actually managed to throw to a WR, the pass was usually under thrown, or over thrown. Either way the pass could not be caught. Offensive coordinator Robert Anai proved once again, why he should have been terminated along with defensive coordinator Jaime Hill two weeks ago. The offensive game plan was terrible. TCU has a fast, and stout defense. It's a defense that loves to blitz. It's a defense that is very hard to get around the edges on. Did Anai take advantage of the attacking mentality by calling screen plays? Nope, I don't remember a screen being ran all day long. Did Anai put his offense in a place to win by avoiding the edges and attacking the middle of the TCU defense? Except for on the field goal drive, nope. Instead, Anai called sweeps, and passes to the edges, plays that allowed TCU to take advantage of their speed and keep the Cougars locked down offensively. It's not like this is anything news. These were the same issues the Cougars had with their playcalling against TCU two years ago. It was the same thing last year. You would think after two terrible years, Anai wouldn't make the same mistakes with the play calling. If Wyoming were to continue the Cougars woes this season, watch for Anai to join Hill in the unemployment line. The offensive struggles are causing problems in Zion. Some BYU WR's have been complaining about the offense. They are tired of the bland, conservative play calling by Robert Anai. They are also tire of Jake Heaps' seeming unwillingness to look in their direction. It's true. Heaps is way too willing to dump the pass off short to J.J. DiLuigi, or some other RB. Heaps has not been making good decisions with his passes. Both of his interceptions this week, were passes that should not have been thrown. On the year, Heaps has only 1 TD and 6 Interceptions. Since becoming the sole starter he has 0 TD's and 5 Interceptions. Granted Heaps is a true freshman, and he has shows the arm strength to make some pretty tough throws, but we're starting to get to the point where that excuse is no longer valid. Of course, before the WR's complain too much, they might want to look in the mirror and at their stone hands which have dropped so many passes, a few of which would have been TD's. Good Riddance One of the WR's who have probably been vocal is O'Neill Chambers. Ironically O'Neill Chambers is also probably the WR most guilty of dropped passes and half hearted effort. Earlier in the season he was suspended for two games for disciplinary reasons. When his suspended ended, he was asked in his opinion why was he suspeneded. His response: "for being a competitor." It was pretty clear at that point that he hadn't learned his lesson. This morning it was announced that Chambers has again been suspended, this time for the rest of the season. Chambers has frequently used facebook to post comments and criticism of the coaching staff and the team. Shortly after the suspension he hit facebook once again with the following, "Well I guess you have to be the person they want you to be, it's pretty funny I though you came to this earth to be the person you want to be but you can't, they want to play god." Chambers has failed to live up to his promise his entire career at BYU. He always put himself above the team, and it's clear from comments following his first suspension, and now after his second suspension that he just does not get it. BYU will be better with addition by subtraction. Chambers is a junior, and while the suspension does not say anything about whether or not he would be allowed back with the team next season, you can pretty much count on him not joining the Cougars in independence. It Should Get Easier Fortunately for the Cougars, the TCU game represented the end of the tough part of their schedule. From now on, it's the lower half of the MWC until they play Utah. Of course, that doesn't necessarily guarantee victories, as even the past two years when the Cougars had a good team, they would tend to struggle with the lower teams before edging out victories. This weeks' game will be a game between two teams that combined for 267 yards, and 9 points. It's a battle of two Anemic offenses. Of course, BYU isn't the only team that is coming to the end of a brutal early schedule. Wyoming has had games against teams currently ranked, #2(Boise State), #4(TCU), #9(Utah), and a team that was ranked #5 when they played (Texas). Wyoming's starting QB is also a running QB. The same type of QB that BYU has struggled with. That said, BYU should win this game. Especially if their defense plays with the same emotion and fire they've had the last two weeks. This could also be a good time for the offense to start to write the ship. However, it is by no means, a game that Cougars can say for sure they will win. A Good Rebound, And The Annual Wear Down After falling flat in their attempt to join the upper half of the MWC last week versus BYU, the San Diego State Aztecs made a nice rebound this week by upsetting the Air Force Falcons. Although as the game came to an end, many Aztecs had to be having a serious case of deja vu. Last year, the Aztecs were unable to finish off many games, blowing them in the 4th quarter. The inability to finish off teams reared it's ugly head again versus Missouri early in the year. So imagine how the Aztecs felt when they were awaiting a replay review of a close call to see if Air Force had converted a 2 point conversion to tie the game. Instead the review went the Aztecs way, as the runner was ruled down before the end zone. The Aztecs then recovered an onside kick. Just to make sure there would be no doubt, RB Ronnie Hillman broke free for a score and iced the game away. While the Aztecs were happy to see the past not overtake them once again, the Falcons weren't as lucky. The service academies typically field undersized teams. These teams will usually start the season strong, but tend to get wore down as the season goes along. Air Force has suffered from this the past couple years. In 2009 they started 3-1 before finishing 4-4. 2008 was 3-0 before finishing 5-4 down the stretch. With TCU and Utah next up on the schedule, Air Force could be looking at a possible 3 game losing streak. To make things even more difficult is the loss of fullback Jared Tew for 6 weeks to a broken leg. Fullback is a key part of the Air Force triple option attack, and Tew has been an anchor to the Falcon offense the last three years. Tew is the second leading rusher for the Falcons, and his loss will make the next two weeks even more difficult. Of course, having lost to a team they should have beat, may cause the Falcons to come out with a vengeance against TCU this next week. A Death We Can All Support Sunday was the first unveiling of this year's BCS standings. In preparation for the event, Some Yahoo writers released their book Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series. The writers spent the past three years going through tax returns, filing freedom of information papers, and interviewing many people behind the scenes to come up with an argument of why the BCS, which they refer to as The Cartel, is actually hurting College Football and must come to an end. Through the course of the book they present a playoff plan, that is completely separate from the Bowl games, except for the Rose Bowl, which they say should be the National Championship game. They then spend the rest of the book debunking the myths spewed by the Cartel, and explaining how a playoff actually helps College football. As I read the book, I was amazed by the financial results from bowl game "payouts". They used tax returns to show how bowl game payouts are in fact mythical numbers. It's been known for a while that many teams actually lose money on bowl games, however it was surprising to see exactly how bad the losses are. The writers further go to show, that a dependence upon the bowl system is partially responsible for many universities being unable to balance their athletic budgets. They explain that it is because of the bowls that many universities have their hands out. Chapter after chapter the writers take apart all of the BCS excuses, and show how a playoff could exist while improving, or at the very least, not worsening anything the way it is now. They show that a playoff would actually make the regular season better than it currently is. They show that it wouldn't adversely effect students any more than it does. They show it could make even more money for everyone involved. The Cartel members would get a smaller slice of the pie, but they would get much more money than they currently do. One disappointing aspect of the book though, was how often they referred to people in television, marketing, and college football, that all supposedly agreed with their point of view. These people acknowledge that a playoff would be better. That schools would make more money. These people all acknowledge the BCS is wrong. I was left with one question. These were people who are in the know, and behind the scenes. People at big universities like Florida and Penn State. People in television at places like ESPN. So if all these people in the know, already acknowledge how much better a playoff is, and it still isn't here, why hasn't it already happened? It makes one wonder, if the Cartel would ever be overthrown, or if they are way too entrenched. This is obviously a very biased look at the BCS. The writers do not pretend for a second to have anything less than absolute disdain for the BCS. And even with the little bit of disappointment brought up, the book does an effective job of dismantling all of the arguments that come out of the mouths of the Cartel. They argue, that College Football must go to a playoff to continue to thrive. Eventually, with all the money that's out their ripe for the plucking (They argue that a playoff would bring in at least 3 times the money the bowls/BCS currently makes), greed will eventually take over. In 2004, before any national writer had written a proposal for a 16 team playoff, I proposed my playoff proposal. Throughout the years I've updated and changed it, including last year. This book is the continuation of a proposal that Dan Wetzel originally released his plan in 2007. During the book the writers made two arguments that will cause me to no longer update my plan. First was the argument of why bowls must be separate, and secondly, the writers point out that all the different playoff plans, actually helps the BCS, because this way they don't have a specific, well thought out, concise plan to argue against. That is no longer the case. This plan is the best playoff plan I've seen. It should be the argument that the playoff faction holds up. Otherwise, the Cartel will never die. The Cartel Standings Unfortunately for now, the Cartel still lives. The initial BCS standings were released this Sunday. The Utes are sitting 9th, the same that they are in both the AP and Coaches pull. The #1 BCS team is Oklahoma. #2 is AP and Coaches first ranked Oregon Ducks. Boise State is currently 3rd with TCU sitting at 5. An Undefeated Mess Of course there is still a lot of time left to play in the season. The rankings will change, and based on the first half of the season, it could change often. One thing that could cause a lot of problems for the BCS is the amount of undefeated teams. Since I am of the belief that there is no way a non-AQ Team will ever be allowed to play in the national championship game, as well as the fact that I think a non-AQ championship game participant would only give more fuel to the BCS Cartel so that they can proclaim "the system works, everyone can win a championship", it's something that I think all playoff supporters should root for. Right now there are 10 undefeated teams. Of those undefeated teams, only Utah/TCU, the triumvirate of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Oklahoma State, and Auburn/LSU play each other. It is entirely possible for their to be 6 undefeated teams as the regular season ends. This should be rooted for. The more undefeated teams at the end of the year, the more of a mess the BCS will have. The more teams that will have a legitimate claim to be part of the national championship. Rankings Game For the second consecutive week the #1 team in the nation. Though unlike last week not only did the #1 team actually drop below the Utes, but the team that beat them did not jump the Utes. That combined with the losses of #5 Nebraska, and #10 (in the AP) South Carolina, allowed the Utes to move up to #9 in both polls. Unfortunately the current emotionally loved team du jour, Michigan State, did jump the Utes. This week there are a few games to watch. First off we are guaranteed to not only lose two undefeated teams, but we're guaranteed that a team ranked ahead of us will lose. #5 Auburn and #6 LSU face off in the SEC game of the year. Both teams are undefeated, and both teams are overhyped solely because they play in the SEC. The loser of this game will most assuredly drop below the Utes. In fact if the loser is LSU there is a chance that they could drop pretty far, as many believe that head coach Les Miles is extremely lucky, and that the Tigers are undefeated despite many coaching mistakes. In fact, for that reason, as well as the reason that Auburn in the more likely of the two to go undefeated, or to eventually re-jump the Utes, Auburn is the team we should want to see win this game. The other undefeated matchup it #3 Oklahoma versus #16 Missouri. This is a situation where Oklahoma losing may not drop them below the Utes, but may cause Missouri to jump the Utes. I also believe Oklahoma has a better chance to remain undefeated throughout the year, or eventually re-jump the Utes. Freshly dethroned Ohio State is not really a danger to jump the Utes against Purdue. Their best chance will be later in the year versus Iowa. After defeating #1 Alabama, South Carolina went out and lost to unranked Kentucky. This week it's #10 Wisconsin's turn to possibly follow up an upset of a #1 team with a loss. This week the Badgers travel to face #15 Iowa. I think Iowa will beat them, but the pollsters, seem hesitant to really move Iowa up, however a Wisconsin victory will almost assuredly move them ahead of the Utes. Of course, Utah must do it's part and win with style. Trackbacks
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