Comments about ‘Utah Utes football: Defense getting slapped around by big-play opportunists’

This was another embarrassing loss for the MWC. Given the fact that Boise State dominated this same Oregon team. Some Ewe fans think that this was not a bad loss but it was. Oregon did not have there star running back for the season and Boise State left many points on the table when the beat up this same Oregon team. Way to represent the MWC against a poor Oregon team that BSU destroyed.

Only a clown would say Boise State destroyed Oregon. The NCAA should sanction them for their blue turf anyway. UU vs OU was a winnable game for the Utes, but not devastating. They're reloading and going through some growing pains. They'll work it out and be fine. The BYU game was the embarrassment. They bent over and took a shellacking at home - a top 10 team - from a middle of the road ACC squad.

This was always expected to be a tough game, even before the media started talking. I don't know if you are BYU fan or not, but I am assuming you are considering the "ewe" reference. If we are seriously going to talk about representing the MWC, then you need to look at what BYU did. Oregon was ranked at the beginning, and on the outskirts throughout the past few weeks. Florida State wasn't even close to being ranked, and you were expected to beat them by a pretty large margin but got blown out. Our loss was due to penalties and interceptions, BYU's loss was do to a very week defense, and Max Hall's trouble with speed and pressure.

Try watching the game before you comment on it. You give Boise credit because they left points on the field. Obviously you saw none of the game Saturday. Utah did the same thing.

Boise....the team who has ONE challenge a year. All season/offseason to get up for ONE game a season. Then coasts against the JV that is the WAC.

I'll admit, watching the Fresno/Boise game I came away more impressed with Boise than I had been. They have some speed that can match BCS teams. Unfortunately, the fact is that same team lost to TCU in San Diego last year when they had everything to play for. After being snubbed by the BCS due to a terrible schedule, they couldn't manage to beat the second place MWC team, in a game featuring more of home field for Boise than TCU.

Step and play a schedule like Utah/BYU/TCU and you'll end up battling for 2-3rd in the MWC, like you would have last year.

My opinion is that the coaching staff has been stressing the "big" play from the defense so much that guys are not sticking to their assignments. The D Line is not staying home and holding their lanes. They are all flying up the field looking for the sack. The LB's are getting caught in the middle too much, or swung to the outside leaving the middle open, in search of the big hit on the RB or QB. And the safeties are missing tackles, bottom line.

A guy like Newman last year was not as talented as Eliapo or Talemaveo, but he did his job. He took up defenders on the line and freed up the DE's to go after the ball. Too much selfish play going on right now on the D.

Our biggest shortcoming on defense this year, in my opinion, is the lack of an effective pass rush. Jordan LeSicla of San Jose State had plenty of time to complete his passes. He was sacked only once. We are replacing two NFL caliber cornerbacks, as well. Thus, a good receiver with ample time to run his routes is going to find the open spot. The run defense has been solid, for the most part, with the exception of the long run from scrimmage given up to Utah State. Add to the mix new coordinators on both defense and offense and you can see that the Utes are a work in progress. They'll get better as the season progresses. Now and forever, GO UTES!!!

Unfortunately fot the U all facets of the 09 team are inferior to 08. The Kicking game is horrible and we knew the offense would be worse going into this season. The real disappointment is on the defensive side where there was hope the talent level would be good enough cover for the aforementioned deficiencies. While I don't believe the season is a washout yet, all facets of the game must improve for Utah Football to be successful this year. Coach Whit has his work cut out for him and he has been up to the challenge in past years.

Good to know you haven't completely called the season a washout as of yet, after losing 1 game on the road to a decent Pac-10 team.

Utah fans, if you really are one, have lost their sense of reality completely. If we can get to 9-10 wins breaking in a new QB and 2 new Coordinators, the season is a huge success. Not too mention playing @ Oregon, TCU and BYU. 9 wins would be a good seaons, 10 would be a very good season. Have some perspective.

Talk is cheap. You can say what you want, but both teams have a lot of work to do. Whining about which team has the most work to do is childish.
As for "Seriously? | 10:10 a.m. Sept. 22, 2009" if getting beat by Oregon was such a significant upset, why wasn't it enough to get an Oregon team "on the outskirts" of being ranked into the top 25. FSU was ranked at the beginning of the year, too. Their win against BYU, as ugly as it was for us, was enough to get them into the top 25. I suspect they will continue to climb as they go through a weak ACC schedule since they already lost to the best team.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Oregon was in Utah's face all day long.

The issue of who's loss is more embarrassing is odd to me. BYU's loss this week was certainly a lot worse than Utah's loss, but I still think BYU is a much better team and their ranking reflects that. Utah has two ugly wins over winless teams and a relatively close loss to an okay Oregon team. Utah could still be a really bad team that hasn't been exposed yet. BYU has an amazing win over 3rd ranked Oklahoma (who is back in the top 10 BTW) and an ugly loss over currently ranked FSU (also ranked team in pre-season). I'll certainly agree that BYU's game was worse for the conference this week, but that ugly loss is canceled out by BYU's big win. Furthermore, BYU is still squarely in the BCS hunt. If BYU wins out and Boise can lose to one of the highschool teams on their schedule (unlikely I know) then 11-1 BYU is in. BYU cannot overcome an undefeated BSU team at this point, but USC just lost to Washington last week. Don't tell me USU, Nevada or Hawaii can't get lucky one game.

Hahahahahahaha.


If you really think a team who just got drilled at home, by an unranked opponent, is still "in the hunt" for a BCS birth, you might be the dumbest Cougar fan out there. And that is a very distinctive group!

First of all Cougarfan you are dreaming if you think the Zoobs are still in the BCS hunt. I still see them losing another couple of games this season especially with that swiss cheese defense.

I would say both losses hurt last weekend but I have to think the Zoobs loss hurt more. The Utes loss hurts because as lackluster as we played we still had a chance on the road to pick up the win against a mid to upper tier Pac 10 opponent.

The Zoobs lost on their home turf. Not only did you lose but you lost convincingly and in all aspects of the game.

Yes, the Utes are breaking in a new QB, but the offense struggled half of the season last year as well. One major difference is that Brian Johnson came through in the clutch regardless of how many mistakes he made during the game. Lucky to a degree, but the Ute heroics of last year saw the defense play much tighter. The Ute offense was stagnant in two 13-10 victories last year. This years defense is giving up way to many big plays and not making enough of them on there own.

As a Ute fan, I actually rooted for BYU last Saturday. That said, I thought there was a better chance for both Utah and BYU to lose than both winning last Saturday. Both schools have weaknesses that made going undefeated relatively unrealistic. I know the media and many Cougs fans didn't want to acknowledge that, but get real now.

Utah and BYU will both lose two more games until they play each other. The loser of that game will have 4 losses total. There it is.

How about the Umpire standing there as the Oregon player tries to decapitate Kenape Eliapo. If that is not illegal hands to the face then there is not such a play. What a freaking joke. He should have been given a penalty. I'm glad that Kenape took exception to this bogus play for the Oregon offensive line and wouldn't back down. The D will get things worked out and they will be fine.
Go UTES!

I'm a loyal Ute fan as well, but our run D is far from solid - we gave up 200+ yards to UO. Haven't done that in a goodlong time! We had several games last year where we didn't give up over 100 to the team, let alone giving up 150 to a single runner.

I agree the pass rush is also an issue, but UO didn't break 100 yards in passing. Just think back to the two scores from Masoli - he made our run D look absolutely silly!

I'm more worried about the O than the D - that stretch in the first half last week (6 yards in 7 possessions) has to go down as one of the worst in recent memory! If the O was more effective, the D wouldn't be on the field as long, and would step up their performance as well.

Please remember how many passes wide open receivers dropped, several of them on third downs that would have kept drives alive.

In a rebuilding year with so much growing and maturing to do as a football team, there is very, very little chance that Utah will win on the road this year at TCU and BYU. Despite the shortcomings of TCU and BYU, they're too good to lose this year to Utah at home. Utah will lose both those games, and finish the year 9-3 at best. I think that is an optimistic goal that the Utes should hope for. If they improve as the year goes on and get yet another weak opponent in the Emerald Bowl, they could end with 10 wins. Optimistic, yes, but not unreasonable for a rising football program.

TCU will run the table in the MWC, and bust the BCS. BYU will beat Utah and end 10-2 and head to Las Vegas again.

BYU's defense is soooo much better than Utah's. Florida got away with so many penalties it isn't funny. If most of those had been called BYU would have given up only 14 points which means the BYU defense is only giving up 10 points a game on average. No way any Mountain West team is going to hold the Cougars to less than 40 so BYU should win the rest of their games by 30 points a game and that'll get them in the BCS!!