Ouch. I’ll look into this more.

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I was on a business trip to Boston and brought my wife - we went to dinner at this nice quaint Italian restaurant in the North End and we met a couple of college students. They were life-long friends and one was going to Harvard and the other at UT Austin (they both grew up in Texas). Both of these guys are big college football fans so we had a great conversation. The young man who will be graduating from Harvard this school year is majoring in Economics. He has a blog called Pigskin Economics and wrote a piece on NIL. I'm going to have him on my YouTube channel to talk about it. Here's a link to his article: https://pigskineconomics.beehiiv.com/p/football-fridays-changing-high-school-nil-landscape.

I’m speechless. Cam was off tonight and especially on crucial plays. Enis should have caught the damn fourth down pass and that’s proof why he doesn’t have to ball thrown to him really ever. Tavion was back to running unmotivated. The defense had an awful first half and an outstanding second half. Crappy tackling in the first half. The Utes absolutely blew out. You can’t spin this one even if you try to.

Vent away…

A great start and then the team showed a lot of resiliency against Georgia Tech. Here are the takeaways:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-runnin-utes-hold-on-late-68-64

Let’s get this thing rollin’… Here are the Utes starters:

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-Oregon made a few more plays than Utah. Utah had their chances and didn’t capitalize on offense. Giving up roughly 55 yards rushing and only 20 points should be good enough to win the game.

-They can’t have a hangover from the Oregon game. They have to pick themselves up and finish the season the right way. Then see what transpires.

-They rely heavily on analytics for FGs and there really were no questions on when they should avoid kicking it.

-The throw game was the most problematic area for Utah on Saturday.

-Regarding Rising’s lingering injury, Cam was out there on Saturday, so he’s good to good.

-Being disappointed if they only win nine regular season games should actually be a huge compliment now to how far the program has come with its constant expectations.

-It’s hard to score when you only get 5 yards at a time, so the lack of chunk yardage by the offense hurt them.

-He reiterated that the conference championship game is still a possibility.

-Four redshirt candidates have elected to use their redshirts. 3-4 others are still deciding and right on the cusp. He didn’t name all who.

He tweeted the following today:
Utah gets into champ game with: - win over Colo - UW beats WSU - OSU beats Oregon - UCLA beats Cal. The Utes need a UCLA win in order to send the tiebreaker to the fourth step, which they would win based on SOS.

I hope he is right. That improved my mood. The way Utah is playing, I only have a flicker of hope that Utah could beat USC in the CCG. I always think of Dumb and Dumber - So you're saying theres a chance. Go Beavs!

Yeah, there is still a chance for the Rose Bowl if a bunch of stuff happens but if the ball does not bounce our way which bowl would you rather go to?

For me I would rather go to the Las Vegas Bowl. Much closer to home against an SEC opponent at a great venue. I don't think the team would mind being done before Christmas either.

Ouch. Sam Houston Stare is a good team, but losing to them by 10 points on your home court isn’t good, at all:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-runnin-utes-lose-to-sam-houston-state

While a number of players made mistakes last night, with Cam Rising having an abysmal night. Utah's lack of confidence in their field goal kicker gets overlooked. I don't care what Redding does in practice, in a game, he looks like he is tied up in knots. There is nothing confident about his body language. Technically, he was 1 for 2. But, KW's lack of confidence in him has seemed to push us to go for it on 4th down more frequently than we did when we had solid kicking.

Here's a summary of kicks and 4th down attempts that might have been kicked.

Missed 38 yard field goal.
Made 45 yard field goal
4th and 3 from the Oregon 11 yard line. Utah goes for it and fails. Would have been approximately a 28 yard field goal
4th and 2 from the Oregon 26 yard line. Utah goes for it and fails. Would have been approximately a 43 yard field goal.

We need to address the deficiency at kicking field goals and kickoffs. So many games are won on a field goal. Two more made field goals change the outcome of this game. Some will blame it on KW being willing to go for it but you get the sense that KW has zero confidence in his field goal kicker.

We are also one of the few teams that can't force a touchback on kick offs.

Does anyone have any insight into our kicking situation?

Here are the takeaways. There is a lot to be frustrated over after that game. In one of the takeaways, it was time for brutal honesty about the kickers.

Let’s hear everyone else takeaways too:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-crucial-mistakes-doom-utah-against-oregon

Let’s talk about tonight’s position battles:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/position-battles-utah-at-oregon-2

Harris updates potential OV stops and recruiting interests with Rivals:

This is the second season where Utah was picked to win the Pac-12 and they failed to do so (the other being 2019, though, they did make the Pac-12 title game that year).

It seems we just have a real aversion to living up to significant hype. The only time it's happened in the Pac-12 that I can think of was one game: the Pac-12 title game last year. Utah was favored. They were expected to win. And they did.

But Oregon was a mess of an opponent whose coach was on his way out and no one on their sideline even seemed to care. Regardless, they lived up to a significant expectation.

The irony is that it came AFTER everyone wrote them off multiple times that season: after the SDSU game ... then again after the Oregon State game. They flew under the radar until Oregon rolled into town and Utah surprised the Ducks, ending their playoff hopes.

But outside that one blip of success as a major underdog-turned-favorite, I can't think of many games where Utah rose to the needed expectations and took care of their business as favorites.

Certainly not this season against Oregon and UCLA and Florida. Florida may be the most egregious because the Gators are, at best, mediocre this year. But Utah couldn't handle the preseason expectations and went out and got beat by a rookie coach. UCLA I can forgive because they're good - even if they didn't look good prior to the game. Oregon? Oregon didn't look good tonight. They were hobbled at quarterback and struggled in the second half. Yet Utah crapped the bed.

Fitting that the best win came against USC a week after UCLA - when everyone was starting to write Utah off.

In 2019, Utah crapped the bed at USC, a bad USC team, as favorites and while it did not derail their Pac-12 South chances (would have had they played Oregon in the regular season, tho), they turned around and got kicked in the teeth vs Oregon in the Pac-12 title game as not only favorites, but positioned for the playoffs.

We are great at flying under the radar. We are a mess when everyone expects us to win a big game.

Just disappointing because these are the big games that we probably need to win if we want to remain on the radar of top programs for conference realignment.

Sadly, so many lost opportunities to take the step from a really good program to a great.

Just a handful of losses as favorites from being a truly elite program. Like legit elite.

Maybe we'll get there one day. But it's hard buying the hype on Utah football when you know it's likely going to end in disappointment.

Everyone ready? I’m interested to see what offensive line has a better game.

Keep cheering. This one tonight especially sucked. Can’t believe we can’t manufacture points any more. FG kicking is terrible. How many times have we missed opportunities to make a game different from early missed FG s? 3 games with theee losses. Missed fg s in all
Three losses the would have made later game situations different. Damnit!!!!!

Utah got a clean sweep on the predictions, but they also had a great clip of Whittingham talking to the team saying confidently…

“Anytime it’s a street fight, my money is always on you guys.”

The Utah G.O.A.T. is a badass. He’s a treasure.

Utah Athletics is holding a NIL Roundtable discussion tomorrow. Even though we got a late start raising money for NIL, we have finally recognized that it is an important factor in our success going forward. A few weeks ago Whitt said that in the future if you line up the top 25 programs from a ratings standpoint and the top 25 programs from a NIL standpoint, you would see the same 25 names.

Many have made the same comparison between the top 25 from a ratings standpoint and the top 25 from a recruiting standpoint. While we have not been able to crack the top 25 in recruiting, we have improved steadily as we are now hovering in the low 30s. It appears that recruiting and NIL money are converging such that we will not be able to improve any further, or even hold our current position unless we can create a significant NIL fund.

I hope that some of you will attend the roundtable and bring your best ideas along with your checkbooks. I plan to.

Here’s Dustin’s deep-dive into Oregon:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/inside-the-numbers-oregon-4

Micah Beckstead is a beast of a RB (5-foot-11 and 206 pounds). He just got the T-Birds on the board in the championship game. He’s a PWO that could end up needing a scholarship.

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Let’s get this thing rollin’… Who is Utah’s starting five:
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Joseph talks about Utah’s sudden defensive improvement this week:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/statistically-speaking-utah-at-oregon-2

In both polls and Oregon State checks in at 25 in the AP, 27 in the coaches.

Is it possible that the PAC 12 is the second strongest conference this season? AND it Is it also possible that we miss out on the playoffs again I spite of that? SC is the last hope for a playoff berth and it might make me sick to see them in it.

A win against Oregon on Saturday might guarantee a NY6 game, either the Rose Bowl if we win the CCG or lose to SC and they go to the playoff or the Cotton Bowl if we lose to SC and they don't go to the Playoff.

Here’s Sean Oregon preview:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/opponent-preview-oregon-11