Hi all! I have four tix to the game today. The teenage neighbor was coming and texted in the middle of the night to advise. Anyone know anyone interested. I can transfer them to their mobile. I just want them to get used so price is negotiable!! It s game 1 at home!!! First come first serve!

Did anybody else see our coaches being escorted in on golf carts 30 min before kickoff??

The result for this game should be a no-brainer, so Joseph ran some other interesting numbers. Check it out…

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

It would have been nice for the Utes to have SUU for a time-up last week and Florida this week, but unfortunately it’s the other way around. Here’s Dustin’s deep-dive in SUU:

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

Here’s Sean’s opponent preview for SUU:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/opponent-preview-southern-utah

Utah vs Florida Prediction​

Another one of the weekend’s best games features what could be a very interesting matchup between the Utah Utes and the Florida Gators. Following up a strong 10-4 season, and a Pac-12 championship, Utah opens the season ranked #7. The Utes are led by Quarterback Cameron Rising, who took over the starting job and led them all the way to last season’s Rose Bowl. Utah’s most notable loss is LB Devin Lloyd, who was selected #27 overall in the NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Florida finished last season at a mediocre 6-7 record, after losing the Gasparilla Bowl to UCF. The Gators are expected to be much more competitive this season under first-year head coach Bill Napier. They also introduced new offensive and defensive coordinators for the upcoming season, completely cleaning house over the offseason. This game’s line is generous to Florida, perhaps because of their home-field advantage. I’d be surprised if they can keep up with the experienced Utes, even with a brand-new coaching staff.

College Football Predictions:​

Utah 44, Florida 17 -
Don't see the margin of victory for Utah being that strong.

Utes coming cross country to play gators. A Septemebr game in The Swamp before a sell out crowd (90,000) will even the odds - some.
https://gatorswire.usatoday.com/2022/08/20/florida-football-utah-utes-season-opener-sellout/

Utes win a close one in regulation.
Utah -2.5

If Gators can take it to OT - who knows ? Heat & humidity could affect the outcome.

https://www.vegasodds.com/news/coll...ns-ncaaf-vegas-odds-picks-and-preview-week-1/

Well, Utah can no longer finish the season undefeated, but we knew that. The South (insofar as there is a South, any more) looks to be the class of the conference, with the Utes, UCLA, and USC all playing like contenders thus far. Arizona, Washington, and Oregon State are also making big moves with impressive performances last weekend.

Time to put Florida in the rear view mirror. Here is what I would like to see this week.

I would love to see Cam get the chance to throw the ball around, especially to the receivers. I know Whitt will want run the ball but I feel like you do the WR core and the running backs a disservice by leaning too much on them in a bodybag game like this one.

First the RB's take a lot of hits and hits against an FCS team count just as much as hits against a PAC 12 team over the course of a season. So reducing the number of carries is a good thing for the RB's in a game like this.

Second Cam and the WR group need to get some in game flow going they really didn't seem to connect at all agains Florida and having a game like this where they can adjust to game speed over practice speed would do wonders for the connection between QB and WR's.

Just my ante for the week. Feel free to chip in and drop your wishlist for this week.

I hope to get back to including highlights in next week's video. I've been swamped at work and next week I'm out of town on business in Austin from Wednesday through about the 1st quarter of the SDSU game on Saturday (Ubering from the airport to RES). Any suggestions for things to do in Austin in the evening would be great - I'm planning on food and live music on 6th street - that seems to be popular. Here's the video:

Login to view embedded media

Given that it is a big deal now-a-days I thought I'd post about our TV ratings this season. All information comes from Sports Media Watch. you can see it all here

Utah v. Florida drew 2.95 million viewers.

As far as I can see this is the largest non conference game Utah has ever had not counting bowls. it is truly unfortunate that we were going head to head with OSU-Notre Dame otherwise the draw would have been significantly more probably in the 4-5 million range (I don't have any evidence to back that flimsy claim up though.)

Does anyone know what our sections are for the Arizona State game?

Very raw and instant reaction….

The defensive line looked god awful. Edge containment was piss poor and the rollouts they continuously allowed, made the Utah secondary vulnerable.

The offense needs to operate in hurry-up the entire game because it flows better. Additionally, the wide receivers looked to be the same old preseason hype story.

Cam missed his guys at times and that last pass will be remembered most. That last drive was a helluva drive before the pick. Was he too reliant on Kuithe all game? It felt like it was more so part of the game plan and the others struggling to get open.

Florida was great and Richardson lived up to the hype. I feel like Utah’s offensive play calling really held the offense back.

Tavion needs to man up at the goal line. Tripping over his own feet and then he didn’t look like he went in to hammer it at the goal line on the fourth down at the goal line.

This falls on coaching too, just not a very good game plan. I get that it’s a guessing game with the new Gator coaching staff, but the Florida staff also won the in-game adjustments.

Last week’s questions were answered and unfortunately, for now, they are the answers the team and fans would like. Halie and I also dove into question s do this weekend against SUU. Give it a read…

https://utah.rivals.com/news/burning-questions-utes-head-into-week-2

I want to be honest about this play after seeing it countless times. As I said in my tweet, this is not how Utah Football tackles. Truthfully, it was a really dumb attacking decision. A lot of plays impacted the outcome of this game, but this is a giant head-scratcher to me. Seriously, just hammer right through the QB… This sums up why Florida fans were wisecracking Diabate’s tackling even before the game.

I don’t want to just single out Diabate… the whole defense needs to tackle better.

Login to view embedded media

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.