I don't buy Utah

[everyyard]

[quote=Palmer;1926163]

and it's ranking.....the 4 opponents they have played have a combined record of 4-15 with only Pitt being a BCS school, the four teams they beat rank 76, 109, 116, 119 in total offense and 52,85, 89, 115 in total defense. Iowa State opponets are 15-7 while playing 3 BCS schools. Utah have a nice resume but they are not a top 10 team...maybe a top 25 team....[/QU

I am still waiting for the "big news" you promised.

ha, ha. me too. from now until eternity when i see bobcats i think "big news."

[cyclones500]

and it's ranking.....the 4 opponents they have played have a combined record of 4-15 with only Pitt being a BCS school, the four teams they beat rank 76, 109, 116, 119 in total offense and 52,85, 89, 115 in total defense. Iowa State opponets are 15-7 while playing 3 BCS schools. Utah have a nice resume but they are not a top 10 team...maybe a top 25 team....

I don't buy it, either. Mostly.

Maybe Utah will beat ISU by 57 points, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that nothing the Utes have done this year (other than not lose) proves it's a top-10 team. I have a feeling this team has top-10 potential. But the jury is still out.

Beating Pitt by 3 at home, and three marginal-to-awful teams by a wide margin, doesn't hurt a team's cred, but part of the current ranking has to do with (a) preseason position and (b) teams ranked above it that lost last weekend.

I do hope I'm wrong, and that Utah is legitimate top-10, and ISU wins next week.

[wrightaboutit]

Hey Cyclone fans. Another Ute fan here, replying to the request to talk about why Utah is good this year as opposed to teams of the past.

Most of the starters on the team that beat Alabama are gone--a little less than half of them were drafted (6 last year, 4 in 2009) and others made it in camp. Our QB for the Sugar Bowl is now our QB coach. Most of those left are on our O-line. Lots of our remaining team was there to see what it takes to get there. That's the past. They know it's what we do now that matters.

Like SalUte said further up the thread, we realize that we are relatively untested and got into the ranks by beating a ranked team in week one, and then did what we needed to do against really lightweight competition. Schools ahead of us lost--that's why we're top ten. The short of it is that Utah's schedule is backloaded. The key is keeping around the top ten until TCU at home, and Air Force and Notre Dame on the road. If you were to ask Kyle Whittingham about it, however, he would tell you that the only thing Utah cares about is Iowa State and with that, here is what makes Utah good this year:

+ Coaching. Whittingham is a blue collar coach that game plans really well. He also requires team orientation and toughness so we rarely see selfish play. Whitt also spots talent in places others don't and requires people to move where we need them. Four or more of our starters were recruited as quarterbacks. They now play receiver, LB, even on the line. One of our QB recruits just started for the Ravens as a 270 lb. DE.

+ Lines. It is not very often that Utah loses the push on either side of the ball. Maybe at Oregon last year, definitely at TCU. TCU last year was the best team we've played in a long time. That game in November will be tough.

+ QB. The backup QB has the school record for pass efficiency and is a solid runner. The 3rd string is 6'5" with sub-4.4 speed--a true dual threat. Wynn is the starter because of intangibles. He got thrown to the wolves mid-year as a true freshman and showed he doesn't lose composure. He dings a little easy but his thumb is back and should be ready to throw. Ute fans are pretty excited about him.

+ Defense. The scheme is no secret. Good corners allow us to stack the box and we blitz. A lot. Lots of press coverage. Three of Utah's Sugar Bowl DBs were drafted. Current CBs have quality time and one will probably play on Sunday. They're fast. Safeties include a true frosh who won us the Pitt game and is proving to hit like a truck. LBs look good primarily because our line is deep. Utah rotates 10-odd people through the d-line so it stays fresh. Defense is Top 20 in seven categories right now but obviously that is fed by the poor competition to date. There were worries because all LBs were new but now they are team leaders in tackling (one led the country). Another had a pick six last game. Again, credit the line for that.

+ Running backs and TEs. Though we're a spread team, we are showing more power formations and putting TEs to good use. We are deep at both RB and TE this year. The RBs have two runners who have had 1000+ seasons in the past. One is 230 lbs., and his 250 lb. brother now plays fullback. Runs feed the passing, and vice versa. Though our current starting QB is not much of an option threat, we get the ball into others' hands pretty well. Whitt's RBs and WRs block. That's part of the program. You'll notice good pass blocking and downfield blocking. People sit if they don't do it.

+ Intangibles. Coaches have repeatedly said that this year's team is tighter than any team in recent memory, including those who played in the BCS games. That makes me excited about this year about as much as anything. Next year even more. Also, STs struggled on punt blocking earlier in the year but punt returns have been on fire the last few games. I think it's adding an attitude to all facets that has been pretty good. We had one penalty in garbage time in the last game, and that was it. That's unheard of for Utah football.

Other Utah fans may disagree, but those are what I think makes this year's team good. If there is one fault to Utah teams, it's that they're addicted to winning the close game. They surge ahead and let people back in. It happened against Michigan in 2008--torched them the first half and slept until a last minute finish. 21-0 against Alabama in 2008 and pulled ahead after Bama pulled within 4. The Pitt game was a lot tighter than it should have been. Don't despair if the Utes start strong. They LOVE being taken lightly and coming from behind. To a fault.

Looking forward to this game and looking forward to learning more about Cyclone football. On a personal note, my bro is a Hawkeye and as a result, I am rooting for you to destroy them. Go Cyclones. (After Saturday.)

[CycloneErik]

They can't be too impressive if they're on our schedule.

[synapticwave]

Here's three reasons to bring us cyclone fans back to reality when we face Utah:

1) They are a running team, they run over 60% of the time and average over 5 ypc, Our losses are to running teams. Our D will need to be much improved against the run compared to those 2 early losses. I'm not sure how this affects our rush defense, but at least Utah isn't a power running team, they run out of the shotgun spread with a zone read, which we haven't really seen yet. It'll be interesting to see how Wally scheme's against the Ute's Offense.

2) Utah's Defense has only given up 1 TD in the last 3 games. They've had a fumble returned against them and a special teams TD given up, but their D has only given up 1 TD in 12 quarters of football. I don't care who you're playing, that's a great stat. Like we have said week after week now, if we don't commit penalties and execute well we can win (a la TT), but we will need to see another game played at the top of our potential on offense to get 28+ points on the board.

3) An extra week to prepare. That didn't help TT much, but typically it does.

We don't match up as well against Utah as we did with Tech. AJK and Knott are going to have to be animals, if we can shut down their run game we should hold their scoring down to around what Pitt gave up (around 28 points). If that happens and if our offense can get the ground game going like we did against TT then we could be in for another big upset. Utah really shut down Pitt's run game so the oline and our RBs better come ready to play.

[Walrus]

and it's ranking.....the 4 opponents they have played have a combined record of 4-15 with only Pitt being a BCS school, the four teams they beat rank 76, 109, 116, 119 in total offense and 52,85, 89, 115 in total defense. Iowa State opponets are 15-7 while playing 3 BCS schools. Utah have a nice resume but they are not a top 10 team...maybe a top 25 team....

how about now.....?