The Utes are now 4-0 on the season and have moved up to #12 in the USA Today poll and remained at #13 in the AP poll. As they game wasn't televised, there was a lot that you missed if you weren't up at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the beautiful Saturday evening in late September.Offense:
All 8 touchdowns for the Utes were scored by different players. They had at least one touchdown run in each quarter (Reggie Dunn, Eddie Wide, Matt Asiata, Tauni Vakapuna and Beau Burton). In addition, starting quarterback Jordan Wynn threw two touchdown passes (Shawn Asiata and Dallin Rogers) in the second quarter. All three Utah quarterbacks saw some playing time and the Utes finished the game with 9 players having gained yardage carrying the ball. The offense had little resistance from the Spartans defense as they moved the ball for 427 yards in the game (playing a fairly conservative gameplan, as they only threw the ball 24 times).
Grade - A+
Defense:
The Utes' defense played equally as well as the Utes' offense. The Spartans ran the ball 32 times for less than 100 yards. They passed the ball 13 times, once again finishing with well-under 100 yards. The secondary did a nice job of keeping the plays in front of them as San Jose State only attempted 1 deep pass downfield.
Grade - A+
Special Teams:
The only blemish on the Utes in the game was a 60+ yard kickoff return given up to the Spartans which led to their lone field goal. When you're kicking off 9 times during a game, the other team is bound to get at least one decent return, right? Special teams made up for any blemishes by blocking a punt and returning it for a touchdown and then blocking the Spartans' next punt attempt as well.
Grade - A
The Utes finished the game without any turnovers (for the first time this season) and had their lone penalty on a false start with about 5:00 to go in the ballgame (they did have two previous penalties declined by San Jose State, 1 off-sides and 1 delay of game, but neither of those show up on the statlines). The fans at the stadium stayed to watch the blowout game longer than I expected that they would. It's a lot of fun to watch your team play clean, crisp football under the lights.
Overall - A+
Looking ahead the Utes continue to have an easy road. They have a bye week this week and will return from the bye week against Iowa State before returning to conference play against Wyoming and Colorado State. We probably won't know if the Utes are any good until they finally play Air Force in the end of October, although they are in the top ten in the nation in scoring offense and scoring defense.
1 comment:
Welcome back to blogging.
Another interesting stat about Utah is that their 4 opponents this season have a combined 1 win over FCS foes. And that's only because UNLV and UNM played this weekend. So the Utes have looked pretty awesome against some pretty poor competition. With an intimidating matchup with BYE next week, they won't lose any time soon.
They ought to make it to the AF game the day before halloween, with a 7-0 record, but at that point their best victory might be over Wyoming. Essentially, 30 or 40 teams in the country might be 7-0 with that schedule. None of this is to say that they aren't a top 15 team. They might be. AF, TCU, ND, SDSU (essentially 1 play away from being 4-0 right now) and BYU will be a much better indication.
(Somehow it seems that we stand a good chance of keeping up the recent trend that BYU wins all the close games, and Utah wins all the blowouts.)
Post a Comment