-Whittingham opened with talking about the awful Virginia tragedy and the sad passing of the Utah fan on the stands from Saturday.

-Not counting the last drive, they scored on 6 of their last 7 drives

-Called Autzen Stadium a crucible. A tough and loud place to play.

-Oregon is doing a really good job in a ton of categories on offense.

-“If you’re not playing in pressure games, you’re irrelevant.”

-Not counting the shortened COVID year, Utah has been in the thick of the conference race and playing great football deep into November for four straight years. It speaks to the talent that they’ve developed as well as the jobs the assistants are doing.

-Called Harding one of the top OL coaches in the country at any level. The fact he had their third-string Faaiu ready without missing a beat, speaks volumes to how he prepares his guys. They hope to have at least one of Maile or Maea back for Oregon.

-He’s pleased with Tavion and hopes they get that same effort from him this week.

-He’s really happy with how the team has evolved and developed throughout the year. Says that by now you know who teams are.

-They don’t go completely off of analytics, it’s more of a feel thing, especially on 4th down.

-They were careful with the reps they gave Dalton because he’s not 100% yet, but he’s getting a lot better.

-The Pac-12 has a tradition of cannibalizing itself and this year is no different.

-The need to put the best QB room together that they can, if Cam indeed leaves. They’ll do what’s best for the room if it leads to the portal. He’s really pleased with Barnes, intrigued by Johnson, and Brandon Rose is developing really well and growing every week with the scout team.

-It’s been a big benefit to see that the stage isn’t too big for Nate Johnson. He’s also lightning quick.

-During the season, the focus is the team. After the season the focus is the player. They’ll help the guys weigh if they can improve their stock by coming back or if it is time to go and capitalize on their success. If scout or GM evaluations say for them to come back, they warn the players what to be prepared for and and hope they come back. It has to be their decision, because you’d hate to see them come back and get injured. There’s also the aspect with NIL of, “Can I make more staying than if I could as a free agent.” He mentioned the odds of sticking as a free agent are a longshot.

-The biggest reason for the defensive improvement is how the guys have come of age throughout the course of the season.

Ughhhhhh… never good. My heart breaks for the university…

https://richmond.com/news/state-and...cle_207a7095-51d9-5aad-afd9-003409653d3f.html

For those that want to read my recap from the Stanford side. I really had a lot of fun at my first ever Utah game!

Brian Johnson was on Adam Schefter's podcast earlier this week and Schefter thinks he's an NFL head coach in-waiting. They also chat about Alex Smith. Conversation starts around 5:35

Well, it took a while, but the route was on.

First off, the defense is becoming special.

Tavion played out of his mind, like he had a point to prove and didn’t want to let anyone down.

Cam had some big moments and a special connection with Vele tonight, something that has been seen countless times in practice and scrimmages. I know he would have liked to be in a groove a little faster than he was, but 3 passing TDs and 219 yards was a good line. The INT was a great play by the Stanford CB, and Rising tried letting Kincaid go up and make the play.

Nate Johnson continued to show he had a bright future. A week after scoring TDs on his first two rushes, he throws a TD pass on his first passing play.

The Utah offense finished with 514 yards of total offense after a slow start to the game.

Simote Pepa lead the defense with 6 tackles, 2 sacks, and 3 tackles for loss. He has a bright future. He’s emerging at just the right time.

Elliss had 1.5 sacks and 1.5 tackles for loss, showcasing his ridiculous speed constantly.

Stanford had 22 rushing yards on 26 attempts. They had 177 yards of total offense, three less than Tavion Thomas, alone.

Let’s hear from everyone else.

Utah had one basketball signee come through yesterday afternoon, former Cougar and current SLCC guard, Hunter Erickson. He served a mission out of HS. Then didn’t see much time at BYU the next two years. He transferred to SLCC for this season.

To me, this screams like a “Burgess, what can find us late” pickup, so it’s not the most encouraging thing from a recruiting standpoint. They’re basically hoping he recaptures his HS scoring magic where he averaged over 20 points per game for two years, but that hasn’t been since the 2017-18 season.

Hopefully Erickson has a great year at SLCC and this suddenly looks like a steal of a pickup. In two seasons at BYU he averaged 0.9 points, 0.4 rebounds, 0.4 assists. He never averaged more than 6 minutes a game. Those stats aren’t mentioned in the official Utah signing article, they mentioned his one game played so far at SLCC: 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting with four rebounds, four assists and three steals.

https://utahutes.com/news/2022/11/9...add-hunter-erickson-for-2023-24-campaign.aspx

Plenty of things to talk about from the Utes performance against Stanford. Here are the takeaways. Let’s hear everyone’s additional takeaways, as well:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-no-13-utes-dominate-stanford-42-7

Runnin' Utes lead 21-6 with 10 minutes in the first half

Former walk-on at Utah (safety) who transferred to Wyoming is now the QB and playing pretty well. Would never have seen the field for the Utes but it’s good to see him doing well as a sub.

Alex just told me that he's seeing Johnny Maea at center during warm ups, so Paul Maile is out.

All previews say that Utah should win this game handily, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out and when the starters get pulled if Utah has a lead as big as expected.

We were in NYC for a week and flights got delayed last night and we didn't get in until 2am. My wife wants a pass on the game and none of my buddies are available. NO ONE HAS OFFERED SO MESSAGE ME IF YOU WANT TO GO AND I'LL SEND YOU THE TICKETS.

Two FREE seats, W11, Row 5, Seats 1&2 (west side, 42 yard line, row 5) available. Best offer in the next 2 hours gets the seats.

Text Mark at 801-631-9901. I can send them to you electronically.

Love to see this! Congrats to Nephi!https://www.neworleanssaints.com/team/transactions/

Utes start strong and win big. Here are the takeaways from the basketball game:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-runnin-utes-roll-72-44

Sean looks at the Cardinal and for the first time, he’s struggled to figure one of the categories:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/opponent-preview-stanford-9

Here’s this week’s position battles, which Utah dominates:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/position-battles-utah-vs-stanford

He was offered two for 70 bones but parents in town from TX and wants four. Know anyone sellin?

Wilner article today on status of PAC-12 media rights negotiations. He gives a nice summary of key issues, and background (timeline events), and expectations.

Follow us if you dare:

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To teams who used to win football games the same way. Now, Stanford is struggling, while Utah is the most consistent program in the conference. Joseph threw in an extra graph this week. Check it out…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/statistically-speaking-utah-vs-stanford-2

Here’s Dustin’s deep dive, showing a struggling Stanford football team…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/inside-the-numbers-stanford-1

With word that Spencer Fano had Utah in his top four recently, other interesting things have happened since. Today, it’s being reported that a BYU defensive guy is expected to transfer to Utah. Spencer’s brother Logan plays defense at BYU.

There was also this tweet recently by their father, Bingham:

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Rivals did a sting factor on the Fontenette decommitment… and newsflash: it’s a loss, but Utah knows how to find and develop quality safeties. They’ll be okay:

https://n.rivals.com/news/sting-factor-randon-fontenette-s-decommitment-from-utah

It’s at the half, but Snowden just took a pick-6 92 yards.

Here’s Sean’s article on what the flip of Raass means…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/what-it-means-raass-flips-to-utah