Thursday, October 9. 2014Red, Blue And Pigskin
I may not have many rules in life, but this is one of them, it doesn't matter if I'm on vacation, when the Utes are the historical night cap of one of the craziest, wildest, upset ridden weeks in college football history, a week that also saw all of the Cougar worst case scenarios come to fruition, well then I have to talk about it.
The only problem is, I'm not sure where to start after such a crazy weekend. I guess we'll just rip the band aid off for Byu fans and get the bad out of the way, but worry not Cougar fans, as I will actually point out a glimmer of hope. What's Worse Than Defcon 1?
After Byu beat Texas I mentioned that I thought there were only two things that could stand in the way of the Cougars and the special season they've been in search of for so long. Unfortunately Friday Night with about 2 minutes to go in the first half, the first one of those things came to fruition as Taysom Hill rolled out on a run play, and as he was tackled, the defender rolled up on his leg causing a fracture that will cost Hill the rest of the season. Obviously Hill's health is the bigger issue from last Friday, but like the old saying goes, the show must go on. There was still a game to be played, and unfortunately for the Cougars, the rest of the game did not go well. When Hill went out the Cougars were trailing 21-7. By the end of the game they would find themselves on the losing end for the first time 35-20. The night didn't start so bad for the Cougars. The crowd was there early, and according to Rhett who was there, "the buzz pregame was insane." As the game kicked off it seemed a blowout was indeed in store as the first play of the game was a 53 yard pass to Jordan Leslie, which was turned the opening score just 4 plays later. Unfortunately for Byu the route wasn't to be, as Utah State hung around. First they tied the game up, then surrendered another touchdown. Down 14 - 7 the Aggies would score 21 unanswered points to end the first half, the final of which coming immediately after the injury. Even before Taysom went out for the game it seemed as if the Aggies had punched the bully in the mouth and were on the verge of taking control. Ironically coming out of the 2nd half, the injury seemed to spark something in Byu that was missing the entire first half, and they rode a wave of emotion to a quick stop, and it seemed like they were going to find themselves back in the game, but every time it seemed as if they were going to turn the corner, they would make a bad penalty, or Utah State would make a play, and in the end the Cougars special season came to a crashing halt. Gone was any hope of a playoff appearance. Gone was any chance at a New Year's bowl. Gone was their ranking. Gone was the interest in the later half of their easy schedule. And sadly, and most importantly gone, was their leader Taysom Hill. Injury Not An Excuse The injury obviously overshadows everything from Friday night, and the team obviously centralizes around Taysom, but truth be told, I'm reticent to use the injury Friday as an excuse for the Cougars to have lost that game. Afterall, the Aggies were also playing with a backup quarterback because their equally dynamic quarterback, who also entered the season as a dark horse heisman candidate is done for the year, after re-injuring the knee he injured almost one year to the day prior against Byu. Of course, unlike Byu, Usu was able to prepare for their backup during the week, instead of the quick entry scenario Christian Stewart faced for the Cougars. Mostly though, I don't fully give a pass, because the Aggies just seemed to want it more, and I think they were on their way to winning it even had Hill gone out. Byu still was making the same mental mistakes that caused them to keep lesser teams like Houston and Virginia in the game. For example, on one of the few plays that seemed to go Byu's way, they did a high semi-squip kick off that the Aggies badly misplayed. After the ensuing scramble, the Cougars came up with the ball. Excitement throughout the stadium, so much so that nobody noticed the flag on the ground as a Cougar player was offsides. Yes offsides happen, and yes they happen sometimes that overrule bad plays, but most concerning is that Byu attempted the same type of kick the previous game, and although a turnover didn't happen on that try, an offside did. These are the mistakes, and penalties the Cougars have been making all season long. On top of the mistakes there was just the mental attitude around the team. After the initial drive of the game, the Cougars seemed to settle into an expected route mentality. Only that didn't happen, and the Cougars were never able to adjust back into the game. When Taysom went out of the game, it finally seemed to spark a fire under the team, but it just didn't last long enough for the Cougars to get back. The Bearer Of More Bad News (a.k.a. Ask Red, Blue And Pigskin) Utah State decided against playing Chuckie Keeton this week, and instead is going to seek a Medical Redshirt to recoup a season of eligibility, so it's natural that one would think that the silver lining I mentioned earlier would be Byu's ability to get Taysom Hill another year. Alas that is not it. Under NCAA rules (Bylaw 14.2.4) there are essentially three important aspects to obtaining a medical redshirt. First the injury must be incapacitating, or cause the player to miss the rest of the season. Check. Secondly the injury must occur prior to the first competition of the second half of the season. Since Byu plays 12 games, that would mean the injury would have to occur in the first 6 games. Since this was only game 5, Check. Finally the injury must occur when the student athlete has not competed in the contests, or 30% of the season (whichever is greater). The important thing to note is that competing in one play is the same as competing an entire game. Again it's a 12 game season, and this was Byu's 5th game. Therefore Taysom had competed in 41% of the season. Ruh-Roh.... Now this doesn't preclude the possibility of a medical hardship waiver, as the Cougars could still seek one, however it's much, much harder to get one when the player has played beyond the above rules. One thing that may help Taysom though, is the fact that this is his second season ending injury, and the first one came after a single game played. But even if he does get a waiver, there seems to be some chatter that Taysom may think his stock won't ever be as high as it is this year, and may try to test the draft waters. A Glimmer Of Hope Okay Byu fans, does it feel like I've been kicking you while you're down? If so, believe me that wasn't my intention. Last Friday's game falls into that category where it was such a bad loss that I don't gloat, so as a piece offering I will now convince you that not all is lost. Let me be clear though, the magical season is for sure lost. There is not New Year's bowl on the horizon, the best that can be done is the Miami Beach Bowl against a team from the American Conference. However, what's not lost is that bowl game, a possible 10 win season, and an end of season ranking. All of which are things that Byu fans like to be proud of. Not only that, but I will submit that the example the Cougars need to follow is actually that of the team they just beat. Last year the Aggies had just come off their best season in school history and were hoping for another great showing with at least a MWC championship in their first season in the conference. Despite an early season loss to Utah, and a three point dog fight loss to Usc they entered the Byu game with high hopes. That is until their QB Chuckie Keeton suffered a knee injury that would cost him his season. The Aggies would go on to lose the game that night, and the following week against Boise State. Then they settled in with their backup, and reeled off five consecutive victories and found themselves in the MWC Championship game. Byu can also have a similar response. Much like Utah State's MWC schedule, the rest of the games on Byu's slate still aren't that daunting. Byu still has dynamic options at the Receiver positions in Jordan Leslie and Devon Blackmon who with a week of actual preparation, can help backup Christian Stewart get comfortable. More importantly, the Cougars still have their best offensive player in Jamaal Williams. I said it before, that Taysom may get all the publicity, but Williams is still their best player. Stewart won't be taking as many runs from Williams as Hill did, which will allow Williams to recapture some of his early career success. Right now on the season Williams has 395 yards rushing. If the Cougars adjust accordingly to take advantage of him, I don't see any reason he can't finish with near 1200. It all starts this week. Unfortunately it's a short week of preparation for the Cougars, and a cross country flight to go to Florida to take on Central Florida. The good news is that Blake Bortles isn't there for UCF, and they are still trying to adjust to that fact, as an offense that was dynamic last year ranks near 100th or worse in the three major statistical categories (rushing, passing, scoring), which is good news for a Byu defense that has been tested the past four weeks. And as long as the Byu defense can keep the Knights in check, the Cougars can still get a victory this week on their road to recovery. The Last QB Standing Alright so who would have guessed that the Utes would be the team to keep their starting QB the longest? And because this season is quickly starting to become about zero kinds of predictable, Utah's status as the team with the longest starting QB lasted approximately 3 drives. Granted they were three extremely unproductive, drop passed filled drives, but it was still enough for Whittingham to pull Travis Wilson in exchange for Kendall Thompson. Whittingham got the spark he wanted as the Utes who got 13 total yards and zero first downs on the first three drives immediately started moving on offense. Runningback Devontae Booker proved why it was a huge mistake that it took the coaches four games to figure something out that was readily apparent in Spring Camp, which is that not only should he be the starter, but he should also be the workhorse back, that Utah used to crank out. This was most obvious in the final driver for Utah as the Utes were trying to grind out the clock. On the night Booker carried the rock 33 times for 156 yards. Of course the real key to the Utes pulling off the upset was the stellar play of the defense. Tevin Carter got the night started with a pick six (the only turnover of the night for either team) to give the Utes a 7-0 lead. The Defense was a constant thorn in the side of the Bruins, as they pressured, harassed, and sacked Brett Hundley constantly. All told the Utes had 10 sacks on the night, led by Nate Orchard with 4. Considering Hundley ended up with 22 passing attempts, when you add in Utah's 10 sacks, in means the Utes were in the back field roughly 1 out of every 3 pass attempts. That usually leads to good things. Now For The But.... Despite the brilliance of the defense, and the workhorse use of Booker, the Coaches, and players, did their best to give this one away. From a coaching perspective, the staff continued what is starting to become a disturbing trend of aggression early, conservative late. The Utes used early game aggression, especially after Thomspon came in, to get a 14 point lead. After the Utes scored on Tevin Carter's interception return, a well executed onside kick by Andy Phillips got the ball back for the Utes. But as the game went on, and as Ucla began to push back, and eventually take the lead, the Utes play calling got more and more conservative. Never more so than on the final drive for the Utes. Down by 1, and with ghosts of heart breaks past (including a week previous) the Utes got the ball. After two big runs got the ball to the Ucla 38 yard line, the Utes started playing for the Field goal. Now with Automatic Andy, there is a some sense into feeling safe with the points, but considering that Ucla's last two scoring drives were both quick hitting, big play drives, the Utes were in serious risk of giving the ball back to Ucla with too much time on their hands. Another huge mistake the Utes would make is kicking it short on kickoffs. Yes Ishmael Adams is a dangerous return man, but the short kicks are never a great idea. It gives the opposition too much field position. For example the final Ucla started around the 43 yard line. The Utes might as well just kicked the ball out of bounds, at least then it would have only been the 35. Now to be fair, part of the reason the Utes may have wanted to go conservative, was the fact that the Utah WR's have come down with a serious case of the drops. Early on when Travis Wilson was playing Kenneth Scott had a huge drop that stalled a drive. Late in the game, trying to keep Ucla from coming back, Kendall Thompson threw a pass to a wide open Kaelin Clay. Clay could have hit the corner and been gone for a touchdown. Drop. Drive stalls. The very next drive on 3rd down, trying to extend a drive and keep a now only down 6 Ucla off the field Kenneth Scott drops an easy pass over the middle. Something is going on with the Utah WR's. The past few games there have been a large number of extremely untimely drops. In the end the conservative play, and the stone handed WR's help tire out a defense, and Ucla managed to get a 1 point lead. Fortunately this week Andy Phillips kicked a field goal to put the Utes back up, but there was too much time on the clock as Ucla drove for a 54 yard game winning attempt, that sailed wide of it's mark giving the Utes the upset. But in the ultimate case of "Don't leave it in the hands of referees", the previous mistakes the Utes had made allowed for an acting job on the part of the Ucla kicker to convince the refs he was ran into. 5 yards closer. Fortunately for Utah the ball still went wide. The Utes pulled the upset, and now had their 2nd road win of the year. Who Are The Utes? Usually it takes a few weeks for us to get a good idea about who a team is. For example after the Houston game, we had a relatively good idea who Byu was, and it was something that was confirmed the next couple weeks. (A pretty good team, prone to mental mistakes.) After 5 games I have no clue who the Utes are. Here's what I know, what I think, and what I guess about this year. What I know is they may have the best special teams unit in the country. Andy Phillips is almost automatic, and has quite a range (enough so Whittingham would have been comfortable with him kicking a 49 yarder to win last week.) Kaelin Clay is a threat to break it for a touchdown everytime he touches a return, and if they try to kick to the other guy on kick offs, the Utes usually have Booker back there with him. Tom Hackett is still the only punter I've ever seen teams drop a 2nd person back because he was just too dangerous flipping field position (2013 Arizona State, 2014 Washington State both did this.) I Know DeVontae Booker is an absolute stud, and if the Utes make in the focal point of the offense, they can book their bowl game tickets. I think this is a classic aggressive defense like those of Whittingham past. Orchard has shined in his role as the man on the team with 8 sacks already on the season. The line backers are aggressive. However opposition has to be taken into account. Idaho State and Fresno State are both bad football teams. Michigan is in a free fall as an entire team, and especially offensively. While Ucla is a good team this year, they've shown they were overhyped to begin the season and are not a premiere elite team. That said Hundley is an elite QB, so the fact that they could make him look so uncomfortable, and keep him contained is great. Another concern is that they've worn down each of the last two games. They also still seem to be vulnerable in the middle. I think the Utes are in a good position for the season. I still target Oregon State after the bye as a pivotal game, but currently they are 4-1 and have two big victories under their belt for the season. I guess that the Utes have an offensive unit. The Wide receivers haven't found nearly the separation they were getting the first two games, and to make matters worse, they can't seem to catch anything. From a Quarterbacking standpoint it's even more confusing. Travis Wilson has struggled for the last couple games, and the offense was absolutely anemic with him in there against Ucla. While the offense saw a spark with Thompson in there, I have to wonder how effective he can be long term. Right now Thompson is where Taysom Hill was to begin the season last year. An athletic runner, uncomfortable with his passing ability. He's a great runner, but he's a player that teams aren't going to worry about his arm. Teams will start to creep up to the line, and dare him to beat them through the air. Ucla began doing this late in the game last week, and it really slowed down the Utes. One thing I'll give Thompson credit for, is when he throws he's extremely accurate, and has a nice pass, with nice touch on it. I'm also willing to guess, that despite getting the probably starting nod against the Beavers, and despite being the popular pick right now, Thomspon is going to struggle, and the Utah offense is going to struggle a bit over the rest of the season. The Utes quarterback situation is far from clear, and far from decided. I also guess that Travis Wilson is going to start at least two more games this season, either by injury, or by getting the nod back. I hope I'm wrong, not because I don't like Wilson, and not because I don't think he can lead the team to success, but just because an unsettled QB situation is always troublesome. Good Luck Playoff Committee I was all prepared to pull out a sandbox and talk about the SEC Bias that is heavily prevalent in the polls and complain how a an undefeated SEC team can beat a top 10 ranked SEC team, (Mississippi State over LSU 3 weeks ago) and instead of the top 10 team being considered overrated, the unranked team made a huge jump, and if it happened outside the SEC team it would be quite the opposite. That is until undefeated Arizona (the last remaining undefeated Pac-12 team) upset Oregon for the second year in a row. The results in the polls was Oregon dropping from 2 to 11 or 12, and Arizona making a historic leap from unranked to 10 in the AP, 13 in the coaches. Of course Arizona beating Oregon was just the first blow of the bloody week that was. Next was Byu on Friday. Then the fun really started on Saturday. #11 Ole Miss beat #3 Alabama. Minutes later #25 Tcu finished the upset over #4 Oklahoma. #12 Mississippi State demolished #6 Texas A&M. When Utah knocked off Ucla it was the first time in history that 5 of the top 8 teams lost on the same weekend. The weekend just continued what has been a wild season. And there's more drama still to come. The selection committee is going to have their work figured out trying to only get 4 teams. The bright side to all the confusion is it will make it more obvious that 4 teams isn't enough for the playoffs. Heck Utah being ranked 24th in the AP poll, just goes to show what little sense everybody can make of the season. Gotta Love Homerism So when you listen to the home town radio station of teams, you expect homerism from the play by play guy. Sometimes the homerism is so blatant, it because kind of funny to listen to. Greg Wrubelll for Ksl is really good at this. However he can't hold a sock to the Homerism from the Ole Miss play by play guys. To start with, just by listening to their voice you could hear them living and dying with every single play, just like a fan would. Any close call against Ole Miss was a referee conspiracy, and every good play was the best play ever in college football history. The best part of listening to them on my drive up though was their blatant, and absolutely ignorance of the facts. The best part being in regards to how Hugh Freeze was working on, and how the Ole Miss Rebels finally, defeated the #1 team in the nation for the first time in their school history. After the game, they talked about how this will put the Rebels back on the map, whenever you can make the kind of noise that comes from upsetting the #1 team, it really sets up the rest of the season. The only problem with that is that Alabama wasn't the #1 team, in any possible ranking. But never let the facts get in the way of a good homerism. Flipping The Question With a fair amount of snark, Rhett responded to the first Red, Blue And Pigskin of the year, where I bashed Byu's schedule quite frequently by asking, "would you rather watch your team get crushed every week or beat sub-par opponents?" I want to flip it around back to him. First a couple things. Obviously every fan would take a win over a loss every single week. Secondly we've established that Utah isn't getting crushed every week. Didn't happen last year, Hasn't happened weekly this year. Utah may lose, and their may be an occasional crushing, but it's not a routine thing. So here's the question. Would you rather watch your team play against an extremely weak schedule, knowing that they'll probably not only win, but win big, except for it won't really matter because your season ceiling has already been met, and even at the end of the year you wouldn't know how good your team really was, or would you rather watch teams against good competition, which may mean your team will lose, but the games will be more exciting/heart attack inducing? I said at the time, that I'd much rather watch games against better competition. It's a better measuring stick for your team, and games against inferior teams, get boring, fast. What say you guys? Broadcast Information It's another secret holiday for the significant others this week, as the Utes are on bye before their game with the Oregon State Beaves next Thursday, and the Cougars play on Thursday night this week. The Christian Stewart rebound era starts on Thursday. It'll be on Espn at 5:30 p.m. MST. Trackbacks
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