People reading lots into week one play. Some important first time performances.
Rudock (at least new to Michigan) with his INTs and overthrows.
Utah DB who got burned on the overthrows.
Perry with bad routes.
Utah receiver who turned Peppers on this Utah play.
Peppers who blew up Utah's WR screen.
Utah WR "blocking" Peppers on most plays.
Looking at the "what ifs?" from this game, my takeaway is that the experienced players on both teams played very well, and that the mistakes were largely concentrated in guys playing their first game of college football. Michigan's underperformers will improve with experience and improved chemistry. Utah's underperformers may get a chance to improve next year as the projected starting DB and WR return to action. I think both teams, if they can stay healthy, wind up with pretty strong seasons.
It makes it hard to judge a loss to Utah. Michigan isn't the first or last Utah opponent that will leave SLC thinking "we beat ourselves" and "we'd win 6 out og 10 in a rematch", because that's Whittingham's MO - get a lead, play tough vanilla football, make the opponent execute correctly over and over and over again, capitalize on the eventual mistake, and always be in position for the loose ball. When Whittingham takes any lead in the second half, he quits playing to win and starts playing to force the opponent to lose.
I think Cal simply ran out of gas after a close loss to USC last year going into the Stanford game. I also think Cal has incrementally improved enough relative to the rest of the North division to reach the end of the season with a little more gas in the tank while Stanford has lost enough that they come into the home stretch in worse shape than last year. Cal's weakness is it's defense, but I don't think Stanford has the playmakers to exploit that weakness this year.
I think Cal simply ran out of gas after a close loss to USC last year going into the Stanford game. I also think Cal has incrementally improved enough relative to the rest of the North division to reach the end of the season with a little more gas in the tank while Stanford has lost enough that they come into the home stretch in worse shape than last year. Cal's weakness is it's defense, but I don't think Stanford has the playmakers to exploit that weakness this year.
Peppers was fantastic in stopping the quick WR screens. Watch a bad 2013 Utah team with an injured Travis Wilson (ground beef for throwing hand) beat Stanford with nothing but variations off those WR screens. The plays that Peppers blew up were the setup plays for Utah's downfield shots. Peppers single-handedly closed a huge part of Utah's playbook. Utah had numerical advantages in the flats- and should have had a field day if Utah WRs could even get a hand on Peppers.
Utah's best blocking receiver and his backup missed week one, so it was a third string freshman blocking, but that doesn't entirely take away from Pepper's performance.
I had Stanford going 5-7 going into the season. They still have probable losses to USC, Oregon, UCLA, ND, and Cal as well as tossups with Arizona and ASU. They could also drop a game among UW, WSU, OrSU, and CU. bottom line, NW's win over a ranked Stanford won't look like much by the end of the season.
Just for clarification, Utah's DBs going into the 2014 season were:
CB: Porter, Rowe
NB: Thomas
SS: Blecken
FS: Carter
Utah's top DB (Porter) was lost for the season in fall camp. By top DB, that means the #1 lockdown DB. Rowe (2nd round pick) was in his first start as CB vs Michigan after playing FS in prior seasons. Porter is back for 2015, and his 2014 backup pre-injury (Hatfield) was reinstated to the University this week. FS Carter was injured as well in fall camp, but played a few games before getting a medical RS. When healthy, he is the best player in Utah's secondary. Utah is not in so bad of shape with DBs.
Some additional info on Utah's coordinator changes:
OC: Dave Christensen departed. He was hated by the rest of the staff and it was rumored that had he stayed Devontae Booker RB would have declared for the draft while K Scott (top returning WR) and T Wilson (QB) would have transferred. Christensen favored backup QB K Thompson as the starter (the guy who threw the pick 6 vs Michigan) and very much limited Wilson by taking away his ability to audible based on presnap reads (no more constraint plays against stacked boxes, which was Utah's bread and butter in the 2013 season and responsible for the big play potential).
Replacing DC are Aaron Roderick and Harding. Harding was DC's long time O-line coach and run game coordinator. He retains his duties as run game coordinator and was promoted to Co-OC. Roderick is the only assistant remaining from Whittingham's 2004 staff and was offensive coordinator in 2009-2010 and passing game coordinator from 2011 to 2014. His roots are in Lavell Edward's West coast offense with a strong later influence from spread to run philosophies of Urban Meyer and Dennis Erickson. Utah will throw the ball much more under Roderick. The bigger question marks with Utah's offense are personnel rather than coaching related with questions at WR and depth/talent issues at the tackle positions. QB could be interesting as there are likely to be situational packages for RS freshman running threat C Hansen.
DC: K Sitake was one of Utah's top recruiters and was a big loss for Utah in that respect. Utah replaces Sitake with former Utah and Oakland Raiders DC John Pease. Utah will run Fred Whittingham's defense with a staff very comfortable with that defense. Expect little change in the Utah defense based on the DC change.
The media wants a ranked Michigan so it can focus on the Harbaugh story, Utah is a good enough team to serve as an excuse for a poll appearance going into week 2 should Michigan win. Utah is also playing week 2 on ESPN2, so the ESPN spin machine will have cast the Utah-Michigan outcome as either a solid Utah win or a good loss to a strong Michigan team in order to inflate the value of its content. A close game probably won't change perception of either team much, but a blowout win/loss could.
- OC Dave Christensen (DC) is gone and is now O-line coach at A&M. He was almost uniformly reviled by players and coaches with reports that QB Travis Wilson and WR Kenneth Scott would have transferred had he stayed and RB Devontae Booker would have declared for the draft. His contract was not going to be renewed by Utah. DC's O-line coach remains as run game coordinator and QB coach/former Utah OC Aaron Roderick (2009-2010) remains as pass game coordinator. Dennis Erickson remains as RB coach/assistant head coach.
- RB: Devontae Booker played a backup role versus Michigan in 2014 with 11 carries. He went on to become the feature back in 2014 and earned first team all conference honors. He is the best player on Utah's offense, and is a player that Michigan didn't see much of last time.
- O-line: Utah's best offensive lineman declared early for the draft leaving left tackle as a big question mark.
- WR: Utah loses both of its deep ball/big play threats at WR. After LT, this is the biggest question mark on Utah's offense.
- QB: Travis Wilson returns. Kendall Thompson saw limited time versus Michigan and did not play well. He will challenge for the starting job and could bring a little more of a running threat to the QB position if he wins.
Utah Defense
- DC: Kalani Sitake leaves for Oregon State. This is a big loss for Utah on the recruiting front, but not so much on the coaching front. Whittingham calls the shots, and always has. The new DC is John Pease (DC Saints and Jaguars 86-2005, Utah Utes 2009-2010). Pease is a more experienced X's and O's coach than Sitake.
-D-line: Orchard is gone, and his spot will be taken by one of Pita T. (passing down specialist, better pure pass rusher than Orchard, but not every down player), J Fanaika (DE/LB hybrid in the mold of Orchard), and Kylie Fitts (UCLA transfer, probably a year away from being the feature player on Utah's line). Both returning DTs started as freshmen in 2014 and have grown into their bodies a little more over the off season. Dimick (10 sacks) returns at the other end.
-LB: Same as 2014 except healthy.
-DB: Loses 2nd round pick E Rowe. Returns top DB R Porter who missed 2014 with injury.
- Safety: Loses big hitting safety/LB hybrid Blechen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFJJeHsPpzk). Replacements appear to have better speed/coverage skills, maybe not as dependable in run suppor.
Special Teams
-KR: Lose Kaelin Clay and a lot of explosivity in return game.
- P/K: Returns all conference place kicker and Ray Guy winning Punter.
Michigan played the 2011 #3 PAC rushing defense, the 2012 #2 PAC rushing defense, the 2013 #3 PAC defense. Michigan lost the special teams battle to the PAC's best punter (preseason 1st team PAC), the current top return man, and the PAC's top place kicker (preseason 1st team PAC). And yet people are surprised that Michigan struggled to run the ball and got beat on special teams solely because the opponent has a name with less cache than Michigan.
Utah typically fields a pretty decent defense, and although this one is somewhat subpar, it's still a Utah defense. Whittingham does this by recruiting a lot of athletic "tweeners" who get passed over by the elite programs. KW uses the tweeners to be very flexible with his personnel, The undersized front 7 personnel group that sees a lot of play versus spread teams is not the same package that comes out versus a team like Stanford or Michigan.
The front 7 Michigan will see the most are likely to be bigger than what Utah has shown so far:
Recent Comments
People reading lots into week one play. Some important first time performances.
Rudock (at least new to Michigan) with his INTs and overthrows.
Utah DB who got burned on the overthrows.
Perry with bad routes.
Utah receiver who turned Peppers on this Utah play.
Peppers who blew up Utah's WR screen.
Utah WR "blocking" Peppers on most plays.
Looking at the "what ifs?" from this game, my takeaway is that the experienced players on both teams played very well, and that the mistakes were largely concentrated in guys playing their first game of college football. Michigan's underperformers will improve with experience and improved chemistry. Utah's underperformers may get a chance to improve next year as the projected starting DB and WR return to action. I think both teams, if they can stay healthy, wind up with pretty strong seasons.
It makes it hard to judge a loss to Utah. Michigan isn't the first or last Utah opponent that will leave SLC thinking "we beat ourselves" and "we'd win 6 out og 10 in a rematch", because that's Whittingham's MO - get a lead, play tough vanilla football, make the opponent execute correctly over and over and over again, capitalize on the eventual mistake, and always be in position for the loose ball. When Whittingham takes any lead in the second half, he quits playing to win and starts playing to force the opponent to lose.
NM
I think Cal simply ran out of gas after a close loss to USC last year going into the Stanford game. I also think Cal has incrementally improved enough relative to the rest of the North division to reach the end of the season with a little more gas in the tank while Stanford has lost enough that they come into the home stretch in worse shape than last year. Cal's weakness is it's defense, but I don't think Stanford has the playmakers to exploit that weakness this year.
I think Cal simply ran out of gas after a close loss to USC last year going into the Stanford game. I also think Cal has incrementally improved enough relative to the rest of the North division to reach the end of the season with a little more gas in the tank while Stanford has lost enough that they come into the home stretch in worse shape than last year. Cal's weakness is it's defense, but I don't think Stanford has the playmakers to exploit that weakness this year.
This completely stands out from the crowd of highly derivitive stuff most people put out.
duplicate
The media wants a ranked Michigan so it can focus on the Harbaugh story, Utah is a good enough team to serve as an excuse for a poll appearance going into week 2 should Michigan win. Utah is also playing week 2 on ESPN2, so the ESPN spin machine will have cast the Utah-Michigan outcome as either a solid Utah win or a good loss to a strong Michigan team in order to inflate the value of its content. A close game probably won't change perception of either team much, but a blowout win/loss could.
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Squatters Hop Rising is a good double IPA that comes in at 9% ABV for those wishing to test alcohol tolerance at altitude.
Utah Offense:
- OC Dave Christensen (DC) is gone and is now O-line coach at A&M. He was almost uniformly reviled by players and coaches with reports that QB Travis Wilson and WR Kenneth Scott would have transferred had he stayed and RB Devontae Booker would have declared for the draft. His contract was not going to be renewed by Utah. DC's O-line coach remains as run game coordinator and QB coach/former Utah OC Aaron Roderick (2009-2010) remains as pass game coordinator. Dennis Erickson remains as RB coach/assistant head coach.
- RB: Devontae Booker played a backup role versus Michigan in 2014 with 11 carries. He went on to become the feature back in 2014 and earned first team all conference honors. He is the best player on Utah's offense, and is a player that Michigan didn't see much of last time.
- O-line: Utah's best offensive lineman declared early for the draft leaving left tackle as a big question mark.
- WR: Utah loses both of its deep ball/big play threats at WR. After LT, this is the biggest question mark on Utah's offense.
- QB: Travis Wilson returns. Kendall Thompson saw limited time versus Michigan and did not play well. He will challenge for the starting job and could bring a little more of a running threat to the QB position if he wins.
Utah Defense
- DC: Kalani Sitake leaves for Oregon State. This is a big loss for Utah on the recruiting front, but not so much on the coaching front. Whittingham calls the shots, and always has. The new DC is John Pease (DC Saints and Jaguars 86-2005, Utah Utes 2009-2010). Pease is a more experienced X's and O's coach than Sitake.
-D-line: Orchard is gone, and his spot will be taken by one of Pita T. (passing down specialist, better pure pass rusher than Orchard, but not every down player), J Fanaika (DE/LB hybrid in the mold of Orchard), and Kylie Fitts (UCLA transfer, probably a year away from being the feature player on Utah's line). Both returning DTs started as freshmen in 2014 and have grown into their bodies a little more over the off season. Dimick (10 sacks) returns at the other end.
-LB: Same as 2014 except healthy.
-DB: Loses 2nd round pick E Rowe. Returns top DB R Porter who missed 2014 with injury.
- Safety: Loses big hitting safety/LB hybrid Blechen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFJJeHsPpzk). Replacements appear to have better speed/coverage skills, maybe not as dependable in run suppor.
Special Teams
-KR: Lose Kaelin Clay and a lot of explosivity in return game.
- P/K: Returns all conference place kicker and Ray Guy winning Punter.
Utah typically fields a pretty decent defense, and although this one is somewhat subpar, it's still a Utah defense. Whittingham does this by recruiting a lot of athletic "tweeners" who get passed over by the elite programs. KW uses the tweeners to be very flexible with his personnel, The undersized front 7 personnel group that sees a lot of play versus spread teams is not the same package that comes out versus a team like Stanford or Michigan.
The front 7 Michigan will see the most are likely to be bigger than what Utah has shown so far:
DE: Dimmick 6'3 266
DT: Ianu 6'2 290
NT: Lotulelei 6'1 310 (or Tu'ikolovatu 6'1 320)
DE: Fanaika 6'3 270
LB: Orchard 6'4 255
LB: Norris 6'2 237
LB: Paul 5'10 227