Would have been a tough loss to swallow. Looking on the bright side without those 3 big plays/mistakes we outplayed them big all game. The offense has been clutch multiple times at end of games this season, big-time drive to get the lead back.
I agree with that. We played better here than we did vs TT or UCF...definitely KU. Noel rarely even bobbles a PR. It was surprising to see him drop one. We also have been pretty clean on punt protection all season. Obviously, Rocco needs to quit throwing pick sixes and that's been an issue of his for awhile now. He seems to throw those short passes too hard and loses his accuracy. That was an easy pass to Noel and it was way off. Noel had no chance of catching that one. Now, it should have been a pick and immediate tackle, but the kid had a really nice return.
Overall, I thought that our offense played well and the defense was much better. Still the same problems in the alley with the long QB run. We've had issues there (alley) all season. North Dakota did it, iowa did it, UCF, TT, KU. And, you can be damn sure that KSU sees it and their QB and RB are licking their chops. I've given up hope that we're going to "fix" that this year...just try to control the damage. The only way Utah was going to beat us with a backup backup QB was to bust a long run and he did just that.