What the Hell was that?!

Wow, Utah looks really really bad right now. They are playing outside their heads, not making good decisions nor are they playing with any heart. The offense was so bad that it not only took the air out of themselves, but the defense lost it to. The O line is taking a lot of heat for the past two weeks, unnecessarily in my opinion. I think Wynn is holding the ball to long, drifting to far back into the pocket and running out of the pocket before the pressure gets to him. He is throwing the ball into the dirt right now and I haven't seen him play right since the Wyoming game. I'm not blaming everything on him, he is the QB though and needs to take a huge step forward mentally for this offense to get back on track.

Another huge issue has been the play calling of Aaron Roderick. Before the Airforce game, the offense was almost dead even, but since that game, the are sporadic at best. They tried to run the ball down the throats of AF without stretching the field at all. Against TCU, they abandoned the run to try to get back into the game after being down 14-0 early. After Wynn got picked deep against TCU, they haven't thrown deep at all, not once. Against Notre Dame, they killed themselves by not getting back into the offense they had before. Utah excels at power running the ball up the gut and than calling play action pass with either a deep pass or a crossing pattern by one of the WR's. They are trying to get those deep passes without the play action so the DB's are all over the WR's. Because of that, teams are dropping 8 to 9 guys into "the box" and Utah can't get any running lanes open and every yard is hard fought. With Utah's passing game only being out in the flat or 5-10 yards down field, the linebackers and defensive backs don't have to drop back, so the 5-10 yard passes are closing up as well. In other words, run the ball, play action pass, stretch the field deep. Catch the ball when it comes, hold the ball when you have it, throw it to where a receiver can catch it and run.

On the other side of the ball, it's about going back to basics. Tackling is a huge issue right now. They are not doing it, they are hitting and arm tackling. Simplify the scheme, these guys are used to a 4-3 man based defense with some zone blitzes mixed in. Not a weird combo of 4-3 zone and 3-4 or 3-3-5 zone. Get back to basics, you don't have the Paul Kruger, Koa Misi, Robert Johnson, Eric Weddle, Sioni Pouha, Shaun Smith, etc., to cover for mistakes. This is a very good, blue collar defense that is playing really well as a team that just needs to be allowed to do what they do best. Defensive line eating up blocks and getting some pressure, linebackers staying in their gabs and covering their zones and defensive backs covering WR's tight.

It's not only that these guys have lost the past 2 weeks, they haven't played well and just got blown out by a BAD Notre Dame team. It's gut check time going into a 7-3 San Diego State as a 5 point underdog. Get back the bark, more importantly, get back the bite. Don't let TCU beat you a 3rd time. Even if Utah loses this game but fights hard, that will be better than what I've witnessed the past 2 weeks.