FOOTBALL

Why Was Utah So Clueless?

Are Pac-12 coaches naturally clueless or do they strive to look ridiculous?

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham should fire his defensive coordinator today.

What was the Utes’ defensive game plan? They are playing USC, which has good receivers. They just saw BYU give USC problems by dropping eight defenders back into coverage.

So what does Utah do? It plays press coverage with its defensive backs up at the line of scrimmage but they never touched the USC receivers at the line.

USC’s biggest weapon is the deep ball. Utah did not defend to take away the deep ball. It played a defense that was exactly what USC wanted.

Two weeks ago, Stanford played a four-man front and never pressured Kedon Slovis.

What are these coaches thinking?

I spend plenty of time criticizing Clay Helton but he fits right into this conference.

17 thoughts on “Why Was Utah So Clueless?”

  2. Utah felt their scheme didn’t need to drop 8 like BYU due to talent. Willingham very much underestimated how good our WRs were. Lots of teams seem more focused on doubling up on Amon than anyone else.

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  3. They changed defenses over and over again. Ran multiple types of zones even with press coverage, they had guys bracketed. The TD pass to St Brown? 2 deep zone, 7 in coverage. The deep balls and TD pass to Pittman? 7 or 8 men in coverage.

    Only the TD pass to TV was press coverage. What happened was GH made good adjustments and ran 2 and 3 verticals all night, just like you should against zones.

    Stick to what you are good at, pure snark. Don’t start breaking down the game and prove to everyone you have no clue of what you write about.

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  4. U guys are all wrong. We have another George Blanda on our hands. He just wants to bomb. It doesn’t matter what the coverage is. When you have recievers like those, just bomb, baby, just bomb.

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  5. Utah had a game plan on defense. That all changed the 2nd play of the game . A better QB came in and threw the ball all over the yard . Shut the F up Scott

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  6. Utah ran the defensive game plan they prepared for Slovis. Once Slovis was hurt, Utah should have changed because Fink has athletic ability to escape the pressure.

    But they didn’t because almost all football coaches stubbornly stick to the Game Plan, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it isn’t working, because Football coaches are, by and large, not the most intelligent people. This affects almost every football coach at almost every level. It’s why smart coaches like Saban and Meyer and Belichick seem like Nobel Laureates compared to their peers, like Whittingham and Helton or, moving up to the NFL, dim bulbs like Freddie Kitchens.

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  7. I felt this relevant because our current Coaching conundrum, courtesy of
    The Z Blog

    COACHING MARKETS

    In America, a fall Saturday often means watching some college football or possibly heading off to tailgate at the alma mater. Sunday is for the NFL, which remains the top television draw, despite its problems. For much of the country, Friday night is for the local high school games. Some parts of the country play their high school games on Saturday morning, but for most it is Friday night. In Texas, high school football is a two billion dollar business. Americans love their sports, especially football.
    Currently, the two best coaches in the game are Nick Saban, who coaches the Alabama Crimson Tide and Bill Belichick of the NFL’s New England Patriots. The fact that the ancestors of both men are from Illyria is an interesting fact. Not only are both the best of their era, it is possible they are the best ever. Both men have a similar style of managing their programs and both are known for being something less than charming with the media. The shadow of Diocletian is very long.
    Anyway, the thing that stands out about Saban and Belichick is they are smart men, who are excellent organizers. They are gifted at working within the constraints of the game and the constraints of their situations. They are not married to a style of play, instead adapting to the talent on-hand and the state of the game. They are known for getting the most from each player, often creating a niche for the player that did not exist. They also adapt to their staffs, shuffling people in and out of their organizations.
    The thing is, what makes both men remarkable is that they are exceptions. Coaching football is a very lucrative profession in current year America. Bill Belichick is thought to make close to $15 million per year. Nick Saban makes $9 million per year. Both men are probably worth over $100 million at this point. In the case of Belichick, he could be worth a quarter billion or more, as he surely has been given investment opportunities unavailable to most people. Sports teams are owned by oligarchs.
    Now, for two of the greatest of all time, that is probably justifiable, but further down the talent scale, the money is still very good. All over the NFL, there are head coaches making millions per year for being very bad at their jobs. There are lots of assistants making big money for being bad at their jobs. Many assistants, are often known to lack the talent to ever be a head coach, while others are simply happy to be a mediocre NFL coach making a very good living in the game.
    At the college level, the cost of mediocrity is most obvious. Many of the college head coaches are dumb people, even by the standards of sport. Will Muschamp coaches the University of South Carolina football team. He makes over $5 million per year. He is not very good at coaching football. He got fired from his last high paying gig and he will be fired from this one. He’s not alone. The game is littered with guys who are not all that bright, but somehow rise to the top of the profession.
    If libertarians were right about anything, this would not be the case. There is very little government interference in the coaching business. These are contract employees, so they can be fired at will. Moreover, the colleges seem to be immune from charges of discrimination like private business. Blacks are wildly under-represented in the coaching business. There are few Jews in the management side. Women are just about non-existent in the game. Sport is free to be a free market for coaches.
    In theory, the lucrative salaries and the lifestyle should be a magnet for smart young people in America. Every year, thousands of young people head to Hollywood and New York hoping to be a star. They want to be famous. You would think something similar would happen with coaching, where the money is great and you don’t have to have sex with guys like Harvey Weinstein as a condition of employment. Smart young people should be flocking to sports coaching trying to make it big.
    Of course, something similar should be true of politics. Congressman and Senators are not pulling down football coach money, but they live a great lifestyle. They also get perks like the right to trade on their insider knowledge. Paul Ryan, for example, went to Washington penniless and retired with a net worth of $6 million. He landed in a seven figure job bribing his fellow colleagues. That should draw hundreds of candidates into every race, but politics is largely a closed shop, despite being democratic.
    There’s not point here, other than that to point out that “natural markets” don’t exist, even in the absence of government. There’s almost no government role in the football coaching business, but it is a closed world controlled by relationships and insider information among the coaches. The same is true of politics. In theory, anyone can run for Congress. In reality, they allow in only those they want in. The Senate is the world’s most exclusive club, followed by the House and the football coaching fraternity.

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  8. When scottie figures out how to drop eight and blitz wake me up… hahahahaha. Sounds like krappa giving scottie pointers again.

    Seriously, did he just criticize two schools for doing the exact opposite things? Hmmm…

    Might help if he actually watched games rather than read the highlights from other blogs and try to piece together his bs.

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  9. Wolf, your problem is your general premise. You believe that anyone with half a brain could beat USC because Clay Helton is USC’s head coach. The fact is that this team is not easy to beat and you need the PLAYERS to hand you the ball in order to do it. (BTW, that’s my premise) In order to support YOUR premise, you now have to make idiots out of David Shaw and Kyle Wittingham and pretend that you know more about football than they do. “Clueless” does have a place in this discussion, but you have it misplaced.

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  10. Everybody’s missing the obvious. When the 335lb lineman from Utah pancaked our quarterback, he wasn’t trying to hurt him. He was merely trying to welcome him to college football by laying 335lbs of lard on his frame. Nothing says welcome to football like being slammed to the turf rather than being knocked down. That future NFL prospect was trying to rattle, intimidate and otherwise shake the quarterback.
    But when the realization that he could have seriously injured the kid set in, those Utah sensibilities clashed with his smash mouth ways. He just turned into a kitten. So we gained 15 yards rushing and one two three whole bunch of yards passing.
    The fact is our defense wasn’t so bad compared to theirs without the looming pass rush. If we could have taken our time a bit on offense, we might have held them to fewer points. We just gave Utah too much time to play.

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  12. Whoa Nellie!!!

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  13. Dodd Trophy for dude of the week. Listen sports fans, Clay is a goner. The team plays sloppy, undisciplined football in easily the worst Power 5 Conference in the country. This makes the PAC 12 a plum for a top-flight head coach to come in at USC and dominate; and, every viable AD candidate knows this. The new AD will fire Clay and jump-start his tenure by hiring a substantially more qualified HC and quickly make USC part of the national championship conversation.

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  14. I actually have to agree with Scott here. I was pleasantly shocked that the Utes kept playing man coverage, with a converted safety at corner no less. SC has arguably the best receiving corp in the nation. I think the sack was fools gold, making Utah think that they could get pressure up the middle on a bull-rush every down. The Utes DL is big but it’s not that good, while that’s the heart of our OL strength, especially dealing with size without speed.

    On offense the Utes may be our own fools’ gold. The Utes suck as a passing team- an injured runner for a QB with slow WRs, while our secondary is our weakest link. The talent is there but nothing else.

    This team will be a P12 contender which is saying a mediocre mid major conference team, not a national contender. The talent is what keeps it at least there, but after this season, if Gomer isn’t gone, this is probably permanent.

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  15. WELL, they thought they were facing a q/b with little to no run ability ,or even good at getting away from a ‘D’ line rush…who knew slovis wanted to man up to a charging 330 lb bull with a head of steam? maybe some body learned something?

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