Utah's offense

[tazclone]

I see a lot of posts about how great Utah's offense is and I did a little digging. When I see an offense that is ranked #51 in total yards and #6 in scoring offense, I get a little curious. Utah has scored a total of 24 TD. 10 rushing TD and 10 passing TD. The other four have come from special teams and defense. It is interesting to look at because those TD count in their "scoring offense" numbers. If you take the 7 points/game away...they rank closer to 20th and not far from TT.

The punt return team also benefits their field position leading to short fields. Interesting enough their punt return had -2 yards against Pitt and racked up almost all their yards against UNLV and New Mexico.

Just some info to digest

 

[Cyclonestate78]

I see a lot of posts about how great Utah's offense is and I did a little digging. When I see an offense that is ranked #51 in total yards and #6 in scoring offense, I get a little curious. Utah has scored a total of 24 TD. 10 rushing TD and 10 passing TD. The other four have come from special teams and defense. It is interesting to look at because those TD count in their "scoring offense" numbers. If you take the 7 points/game away...they rank closer to 20th and not far from TT.

The punt return team also benefits their field position leading to short fields. Interesting enough their punt return had -2 yards against Pitt and racked up almost all their yards against UNLV and New Mexico.

Just some info to digest

You know what those offensive stats tell me?

It tells me that they have played relatively all teams that have offensive units that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. What I would really be interested to know is so far this season what is the Utes average starting field position and what is their opponents average starting field position. The discrepency between their yards and their scoring ranks tells me that they consistently have short fields which when playing teams with defenses as poor as the ones they have played to date leads to a bunch of points and not too many yards.

Iowa State must win the field position battle in this game and force the Utes to drive the length of the field. Utah hasn't proven that they can do that yet.

 

[Cyclonestate78]

Against San Jose State the Utes had 7 scoring drives. 4 of those drives started inside the San Jose State 43 yard line. Their average scoring drive length was only 52.86 yards. It probably helped that the Spartans averaged 27.4 yards per punt as well. Yikes.

Against New Mexico the Utes had 6 scoring drives. 3 of those 6 drives started inside the New Mexico 48 yard line. Their average scoring drive covered 61.34 yards. The horrendous New Mexico D forced three 3 & outs and 3 fumbles.

Against UNLV the Utes had 5 scoring drives. 3 of those drives started inside the UNLV 33 yard line. Their average scoring drives covered 43.60 yards. The less then stellar UNLV D forced four 3 & outs, 5 punts total, and forced 1 fumble.

As you can see the stats definitely tell a story about the Utes offense. :skeptical:

 

[cycloneman003]

tells me we need a good game from kirby

 

[4Cyclones]

Against San Jose State the Utes had 7 scoring drives. 4 of those drives started inside the San Jose State 43 yard line. Their average scoring drive length was only 52.86 yards. It probably helped that the Spartans averaged 27.4 yards per punt as well. Yikes.

Against New Mexico the Utes had 6 scoring drives. 3 of those 6 drives started inside the New Mexico 48 yard line. Their average scoring drive covered 61.34 yards. The horrendous New Mexico D forced three 3 & outs and 3 fumbles.

Against UNLV the Utes had 5 scoring drives. 3 of those drives started inside the UNLV 33 yard line. Their average scoring drives covered 43.60 yards. The less then stellar UNLV D forced four 3 & outs, 5 punts total, and forced 1 fumble.

As you can see the stats definitely tell a story about the Utes offense. :skeptical:

You my friend have just put the perverbial hammer to nail head.

This also leads me to why is everyone so daunted by the Utes running games. What kind of yds/carry do they have? I watched some of the Pitt game and didnt see much that we cant handle.

From another thread, i agree if we put them in longer field situations, AK47 and co can make for a long day for the Utes.

 

[shagcarpetjesus]

You my friend have just put the perverbial hammer to nail head.

This also leads me to why is everyone so daunted by the Utes running games. What kind of yds/carry do they have? I watched some of the Pitt game and didnt see much that we cant handle.

From another thread, i agree if we put them in longer field situations, AK47 and co can make for a long day for the Utes.

5.4 ypc. And they complete 70% of their passes with a 10:1 TD:INT ratio. I'm glad this game is being played tomorrow because I think we passed the point of over-analysis long ago. Utah hasn't really been tested yet this year, and they may have had quite a few short fields so far, but that doesn't mean that this isn't a team to be wary of. They have taken care of business so far and that's more than can be said of ISU at this point.

I understand that we've all been riding high off of the victory over Tech, but an honest evaluation of our team would reveal a highly inconsistent offense. While we looked good for most the game against TT, we had yet another sputtering first quarter where we kept shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties & stalling out drives. If we do that again tomorrow, we might just play ourselves right out of the game like against Iowa. Additionally, while I hope last week's game was a corner turning moment for this year's offense, we had a similar game last year against Kansas where the offense seemed to get on track. Unfortunately, we had some real clunkers last year even after our stellar output against KU. Just because we had one good game doesn't mean we've all of a sudden got a consistently good offense. To think that ISU is just going to start rolling on O is a bit naive. Nit picking Utah's offense seems like a fool's errand to me when we should be much more concerned with what ISU team is going to show up tomorrow.

 

[shagcarpetjesus]

So far Utah has scoring drives of 72, 88, 63, and 64 yards. Apparently they don't have much of a problem driving the length of the field if needed...at least against our defense.