Red, Blue And Pigskin

Burn The Tape - Big House Edition

The Cougars grind of a September finished up last weekend in Michigan against the Wolverines. Of course, based on the way they played, one could make the argument that the Cougars actually finished their September in Los Angeles, because they sure didn't show up in Michigan. In a truly putrid performance the Cougars got dominated on all sides of the ball while being shut out 31-0.

Offensively the Cougars gained a grand total of 105 yards. Tanner Mangum went 11 minutes before completing a pass. The Wolverine defensive line pushed the Cougar offensive line around all day getting tons of pressure on Mangum. Even when he wan't pressured, it was clear he and his WR's were not on the same page, as he'd frequently throw a pass expecting a zig, but getting a zag.

Defensively it wasn't any better and the Cougars couldn't stop the Wolverines especially on the ground, with the standout play being the long run by De'Veon Smith.

It was a performance, so bad, and so outside the norm, that there really isn't anything that can be taken away from the game. The Cougars aren't nearly as bad as they seemed there. While struggles for Mangum are to be expected, he'll never look like a High School freshman again like he did in the Big House.

This was an outlier game of massive proportions. One of those games where it's just not your night. It really would not do the players any good to watch the tape for mistakes. It's best to move on beyond this game.

The Good News

Fortunately for the Cougars their September, which was the toughest September schedule in the nation, is over. They now enter a stretch of 5 games where they will be the clear cut favorite to win. That's not to say they won't lose one of those games. Given Bronco Mendenhall's history it would not only shock me to see them lose one of the next 5 games, but I would expect it to happen. I just wouldn't be able to predict it happening.

It starts this weekend with the UConn Huskies coming to town. UConn is 2-2 on the season and two weeks ago gave two time SEC East champion Missouri all it could handle in a 9-6 slugfest. UConn does just enough on Offense to keep it in it's games. Defensively the Huskies have spent 2 of the last three weeks playing option teams in Navy and Army. While Navy was able to tune them up for 300 yards, Army was held to a more pedestrian 150.

After 4 straight weeks of stiff competition, especially on the defensive side of the ball, UConn is the perfect time for the Cougars to start to get healthy, and right the ship. This will be the perfect game to rebound for Mangum, and allow the Cougars to help rebuild some of his confidence. Though if we've seen anything the first 4 weeks, it's that Mangum doesn't lack for confidence.

Burn The Tape - Autzen Edition

5 days later and I still don't know what to say. Even The Dog (not the bounty hunter) would be pleased with this performance. I thought that if Travis Wilson played, and the Utes front 7 were able to ugly the game up, Utah would be able to keep it close. But this, never expected this. Where nothing went right for Byu and Michigan, absolutely everything went right for Utah at Autzen.

Even when they did get stopped and were forced to punt, something would go right, like the punt hitting the overhead sky cam wire, forcing a re-kick, only Whittingham noticing that the ducks were biting on the rugby run to the right, so they call a fake punt left and get a 33 yard game.

Yea it was that kind of night. Or it was this kind of night. Either way, memorable, weird stuff seems to happen when the Ducks and the Utes play.

When it was all said and done the Utes had steamrolled the Ducks by a score of 62-20. 62 being the most points Oregon had ever allowed at Autzen stadium. The Utes outscored the Ducks 21-7 in the 2nd quarter, only to top that with a 28-0 3rd quarter. The pedestrian Utah offense showed up with 530 yards of total offense. Not counting the 1 play drive with 15 seconds to go in the first half, the Utes scored on 8 consecutive drives, including 6 straight Touchdown drives. Defensively the Utes forced 3 Turnovers, and sacked 3 different Oregon QB's a total of 5 times.

The performance was just stunning. It was a case where everything that could go right for Utah did go right. The Utes will rarely if ever have this many things go right, and play this well again. It's such an outlier performance, that it's best to just Burn the tape, and instead put in the Fresno State, or Utah State tapes were there were plenty of mistakes to be corrected.

Did You Know?

Did you know The Dog from duck hunt, actually has a name? It's Mr. Peepers. But yea I think I'll stick with The Dog.

Much Maligned Travis Wilson - Giant Slayer

One person on the Utes squad who should watch the tape though, and deservedly so, is Travis Wilson. The Sr. QB, playing through the pain of his sprained left shoulder only happened to have his best game of his career. Wilson was 18/30 for 227 yards and 4 TD's. He added another 6 rushes, for 100 yards and a TD. On the rushes you could see he was really hurting after the tackles.

While Wilson's funky delivery will never look crisp, he's never looked more confident in the pocket, and was clearly seeing the whole field. His reads, whether they were which pass to make, or whether to hand off to Booker, or keep the ball on the read were spot on all night. This is the type of game that Wilson has shown he was capable of, but never really put together completely.

This means that Wilson, who spent most of last year having his head and confidence jacked with by Dave Christensen to the point where Kendal Thompson seemed like a viable alternative, has overcome injuries (intracranial artery, hand, shoulder), and constant calls for his benching, to put up a resume of huge wins unlike any ever seen by a Utah QB. Wilson now has 2 wins over Michigan, 1 of which was at the Big House, 2 wins over Stanford, including 1 when they were ranked #5 in the nation, A win over Usc, and a win over Oregon at Autzen stadium. Technically he's credited with a win over Ucla at the Rose Bowl, but that was mostly Thompson in relief after Wilson was pulled. While some Utah QB's may have bigger wins nobody has as many big wins as Travis.

Of course, since Wilson has had big wins before, we've also seen Travis, through injury or fault of his own, then revert back to bad Travis, so now we need to see consistency, and how about a win versus a team from Arizona. Especially since despite being the nation's leader in QBR, he didn't even have his own teams best QBR for the night. That went to DeVontae Booker who went 1/1 for a 35 yard TD to Britain Covey, so Wilson still has work to do.

Utah's Next Opponent: The Utes

This week the Utes are on bye, so while they won't actually play an opponent on the field, the coaching staff will definitely have an opponent off the field to deal with. They have been lot of attention for not only their performance against Oregon, but for their performance against Michigan, in light of Michigan's handling of Byu. The Utes jumped up to number 12 in the Coaches Poll, and number 10 in the AP poll, including receiving a #1 vote in the AP Poll. Of course, talking about who should be in the top 4 after only 4 weeks makes about as much sense as asking if a team could go undefeated in the NFL after 3 games.

The goal for the coaches this week on bye, is to find the balance of letting the team enjoy a truly remarkable victory and performance, but not allow Oregon to beat them when they face off against Cal on October 10th. Especially since Cal is very capable of beating the Utes on their own.

One one hand, it's nice that there is a bye week this week to give the team time to move on, but part of me also wishes there was a game this week so they couldn't focus on the game, and be forced to move on. The Conference season is long, and there are still many tough games ahead of them. This week that's the coaches most important job. Making sure the players the players understand that.

The Drive

Inspired by Joey's TV pilot project, I've decided to do something similar this season with The Drive. If you're not aware, The Drive is a 30 minute, Hard Knocks style show on the Pac-12 network. This year they're focusing on The Utes, and Oregon State. Last week was the first episode.

Note: In response to Utah being featured on The Drive, Byu put together their own Hard Knocks style show "Inside Byu" and it airs on Byu Tv. From what I understand is it's also really really good, but I have a hard enough time letting Bronco Mendenhall in my life for 3-4 hours a week of game time, not sure I could stand any more time with him. But If someone else wants to recap it, I'm more than happy to include it.

First and foremost, The Drive is too short. 30 minutes for two teams just really isn't enough, and the premiere episode was hampered by trying to include 5 weeks (2 weeks of camp, and the first 3 games) for both teams. From here on out though, it's a weekly show. This was about my only complaint.

The opening shot of the drive, focusing on Whit and his workout, and his routine, was a great intro. It really helped to illustrate how the Utes have really taken on the personality of their Head Coach. Contrast that with the intro to Oregon State which was your generic shots of players at camp, and it shows that Gary Andersen hasn't been able to put his identity on the Beavers yet. Of course, it's hard to put your identity on any team when you keep leaving after a few years.

It was really nice to be able to get inside the meeting rooms. During camp, Whittingham would constantly tell the public that Wilson and the throw passing game were making strides, but still needed some work. This week we got a look at the Coaches meeting after the 2nd scrimmage, where Co-Offensive Coordinator was a bit more harsh, basically saying Travis was nowhere near where they needed to be, and a Sr should make the mistakes he was making. (I guarantee that's also what they told Wilson.) It was an interesting look behind the curtain.

Unfortunately that was about it this week, since they had to cram so much into so little. This week's episode should be interesting though. new episodes of The Drive premieres each Wednesday night on the Pac-12 network

Note: I really really really can't stand when Whit refers to the passing game as the throw game. It just sounds so stupid. Why can't you call it the passing game like the rest of the world? It's almost as dumb as referring to the Red Zone as the Blue Zone just because your colors happen to be Blue.

Tv Times And Kickoffs

Byu begins a stretch of 3 Friday games over the next 5 weeks. This week it's the annual Conference Weekend Friday Nighter. They'll kickoff against UConn at 8:15 p.m. Mountain Time on ESPN 2.

With the Utes now in Pac-12 play, it also means times not being announced until 12 or 6 days before the game. The time for the Cal game has been announced for October 10th and it'll be an 8:00 p.m. mountain time kick, and will be on ESPN. With the high powered Bear Raid offense, this game has massive #Pac12AfterDark potential.