Utah 44, Louisville 35

You would think that I would have been able to get this posted earlier in the week - considering that it is fall break and all (we had the whole week off school). The problem was that I didn't get around to watching the first half of the football game until this morning. Last Friday evening, when the game was being played, Alison, Ada and I were driving to Las Vegas to visit my sister Alysia and her family. We were able to watch the second half of the game, but we had to wait until we got home to watch the first half. Anyways, if you would have told me before the season started that Utah was going to beat UCLA and Louisville (who was a preseason top 10 team), then I would have booked my BCS tickets right then. Obviously, being shutout by UNLV throws a wrench into even going to a bowl game.

With the exception of the first 10 minutes of the third quarter, Utah looked really good in this game. They were able to move the ball very efficiently, they had 340 yards of offense in the first half alone. They had only been averaging 93 yards on the ground, per game (105th in the nation or something) and they had 140 yards on the ground in the first half against Louisville. It's a well documented fact that the Louisville defense would struggle to contain even Layton High's 'high powered' offense - and the Utes were able to take advantage.

The defining drive had to be early in the game when they were pinned on their own 3-yard line and they got a false start (which moved them to the 1.5 yard line). They proceeded to march down the field and score a touchdown in only 9 plays. On another drive in the first half, Utah converted on two fourth downs, one on a beautifully executed fake field goal. Where was this offense against Air Force and UNLV?

I have given up predicting Utah's future. From here on out, it's a game by game season. They've still got great potential but they've got to get up for the little games as well as the big games. This is a problem that the coaches better be working on.