I just landed coming back from Florida. Let’s talk position grades… In all honesty, plenty of these can be up for debate, as some positions definitely had their bright moments, with some bad mixed in. Other positions failed miserably for the grades…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/position-grades-utah-at-florida

Because nothing is certain I’ll put it at a 1% chance they play in SLC next year.

Teams like Florida and Bama just don’t travel west for Non Con games.

I went back to 1980. They played Cal in Berkeley in 83 and that’s it.

I hope the buyout is expensive

13! Not terrible

Ok, that's tongue in cheek.

Still, now that everyone's on campus and practicing all reports on how the newcomers are performing are welcome.

I’ve listed to ESPN, Pac-12 radio, ESPNU, read articles in the Athletic and other college football websites. Yes Utah lost the game but give the Utes some credit.

* Utah had two long drives that resulted in a pick and failed 4th at the goal line. Combined with the scoring drive (and failed 2-pt) that is three (3) drives where Utah out muscled Florida. And yes Utah did OUTPLAY Florida overall.

No morale victories. They had several legit chances to go ahead and win against Florida but didn’t deliver. Utah showed they can go toe-to-toe with a good SEC team on the Road and a top 5 team in OSU in the Rose Bowl. The Utah football program isn’t a G5 flash in the pan team. They arent some middle of the road team that is lucky Oregon and USC are down right now. They’ve EARNED your respect. Utah will continue to fight for respect and the next time they get another chance they will deliver,

That was a very difficult loss for the obvious reasons. I try to step back and collect my thoughts before a chime in to keep the emotions in check. A few things that never seem to change with Utah Football, no matter what the chatter seems to be all off season and through fall camp....

1) no downfield passing attack / threat
2) DE's still dont have discipline to contain the edge on read options
3) No QB under center for goal line and short yardage
4) After 2 or 3 consecutive runs on 1st down, play action will work on first down.
5) We remain ultra conservative. No mis direction, fly sweeps, reverses, etc to keep the defense off balance and I'm not sure i saw one blitz on defense.
6) there goes the idea of depth on o line. Move all conference RG to RT and we weaken two positions.
7) When there might be a review pending (Cam on 3rd down at the goalline), please dont go hurry up offense on 4th down so you dont give the replay official time to review

Please stop me, i could keep going......

-Tough loss, but Whittingham really likes the potential of this team.

-The whole travel situation for this trip was a joke. The worst experience Whittingham has ever dealt with. He felt really bad for the players.

-3 for 6 in the red zone isn’t acceptable.

-Cam had over a 70% completion, ran the ball well, but had just that one play-the INT.

-The offense handled the noise really well.
-Only three penalties, and one was purposely done.

-When Kincaid fell down, Whittingham doesn’t think Cam saw the guy who got the INT. He hasn’t talked to Cam about it, only Ludwig.

-The Utah staff didn’t see anything meaningful to challenge the play. (The media kind of implied that there was that one angle, but Whittingham said that unless it’s obvious that it wouldn’t have mattered)

-The Florida personnel will be the best Utah plays all year.

-Laumea to tackle was a late switch and Whittingham was really happy about that. Mokofisi at RG is looking really good too.

-Kump is the first guy up with the reserves. He’s preparing to play inside and outside.

-The team throwing on the pads late, was designed to be a one-time thing.

Whittingham was advised to do that by a few teams, including Georgia.

-Whittingham didn’t mince words about the performance of the linebackers. He’s not happy about it—everything in the run and the pass game was basically bad.

Let’s get this thing rollin’! The highly anticipated season is here? How’s everyone feeling?

Just ran into the team at the Gainesville airport. Plane issues caused them to sleep on the plane for four hours. Allowed to deplane this morning early and are all over the airport sleeping.
I feel bad for them as they all just want to get home.
spirits are good though after the game and they are ready to win the rest of their games. Confidence is high.
Bad news is there is no end in sight for plane. May have to bus to Tampa, then fly home if they can work out logistics. Was a full flight with team and boosters.

The attendance today. 10th biggest crowd in Florida history. I am kindof flattered. Of course i wasn't at the game...

I had a thought to get off my chest and am open to other’s thoughts. Over the years we hear about importance of gap integrity with D lineman so backers can be freed up to make plays. In interviews this year we ve heard so much about the DL attacking and having that style now. Could that be a part of why UF running backs also gashed us so bad? Seemed
Like the backers were nowhere and our D ends especially were biting down or not setting the edge.

just a thought. So close this one and it s gonna be painful for a bit…. So many mistakes and just bad tackling we are not used to. Hopefully things change and can get back out there.

Here are the takeaways from tonight’s heartbreaker…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-no-7-utah-falls-to-florida

Ive never seen such a slow Oregon team in over a decade. In todays game of spread offenses, Noah Sewell's size is a detriment to his game. Oregon is not good.

The no. 7 Utes are in right where they want to be heading into the highly-anticipated 2022 season. Here are some takeaways as game week is here…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-no-7-utah-looks-ready-to-back-up-the-hype

Let’s go stay dry

Halie breaks down the position comparisons for the Florida game: https://utah.rivals.com/news/position-battles-florida-vs-utah

Halie takes a look at three questions to watch for against Florida: https://utah.rivals.com/news/three-burning-questions-utah-at-florida

I jumped on a Florida podcast late Thursday night. It was long, 2.5 hours, but it was really enjoyable and some great conversations. Check it out.

https://t.co/Gyoj5gqIuZ

Here’s the link. I loved seeing that message thread pop back up. Thanks everyone for your support on that…

https://athletesmerch.com/shop/1990s-era-mafu-hat/

After today’s Jazz fail with their rebrand, check these MAFU hats out. It’s just a small part of a project I’m working on. If any of you want one, let me know and I’ll give the details when they’re set.

Login to view embedded media

Let's talk about another stud running back out of Florida in freshman Jaylon Glover: https://utah.rivals.com/news/utenation-countdown-to-kickoff-no-1-jaylon-glover

With our criteria for these articles (on campus during spring ball as a scholarship player), today brings us to our final UteNation Countdown to Kickoff article for the season. It's been crazy keeping up with writing the articles the past few months, but it's been fun trying to give more insight to these student-athletes and trying to keep the quality solid with the info we have.

It's only fitting that we finish with a leader of the defense and a guy who we will probably see playing on Sundays sooner than later, no. 1 Clark Phillips III.

Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. College football as we grew up with is long gone.

Utes get a big commitment in the trenches, the night before the season starts…

Login to view embedded media