Welcome Back to Utah!
This week Amieable and I are thrilled to welcome Cougar nation back to the Wasatch Front for our tilt with the Utes of Utah. For those of you making the trek to Salt Lake City, here is a handy guide to help make your stay more enjoyable. We can’t wait to see Coug fans crawling all over the SLC, and we are especially excited to hear the shouts of “GO” answered by “Cougs!” ringing out across Temple Square. Besides being a chance to avenge Connor Halladay’s liver, this game is also the first leg of what promises to be an improbable miracle run to a bowl eligible finish. How are we going to do it? Click the jump to find out...
Revenge is a dish best served with onions.
Mark me down as one who was mostly thrilled with the Cougs performance last week, despite the outcome. Although we showed that our margin of error against very good teams is slim, we also showed that we could go toe to toe with a physical, mature team for four full quarters with every opportunity to beat them. More than that, we did it on the road. The recipe for beating the Utes will be very similar to what so nearly worked against stanford... On defense, stop the run and force them into throwing situations and on offense, take care of the ball and maintain long, patient drives that culminate in points. I know, that isn’t a huge revelation, but this is a simpler game than we make it sometimes.
Last week Stanford was able to find their margin of victory thanks to two big scoring plays that were the result of major, but correctable errors by the Cougs. First there was the long touchdown pass which was obviously the result of having Tyree Toomer in the game. That does not need to happen again. Problem solved. Second, the pick six thrown by Tuel was one of the very few plays the whole day where he really locked onto a guy and telegraphed a pass right into the arms of a very alert safety. On a day when he threw over 60 passes, we can all take comfort in the fact that this play was an anomaly. Further, we should be encouraged by what happened after this play. No mopey corpse basset hounds zombie faces were anywhere to be found on our sideline.
Instead, Tuel marched the offense back onto the field and straight to a score. How refreshing was that? How many of you almost walked away after that pick 6 thinking, “Well thats ballgame.”? I know I did. We have been conditioned to not believe that this team has any bounce back whatsoever when things go badly. Last week, they had plenty.
This week we play a Utah team that is depleted at the offensive skill positions and fighting desperately to salvage a Potato Bowl bid out of a season where a Pac12 South Championship was an honest aspiration. Much like Stanford, they rely on a tough running game, with a very good back in John White IV and a tough defense anchored by all world D tackle Star Lotuleile. The Utes are also scrappy as hell, and although there is no real way to quantify “scrappiness” I think it becomes clear when reviewing their “ugly” wins this year that they are a team that doesn’t know how to not give it their all. As disappointing as this season has been for them, this team is still a terrific reflection of the toughness and competitiveness of their coach, Kyle Whittingham. All this means is that while this is a game we can definitely win, we will need to win ugly. That fight to the end spirit we saw start to emerge the last few weeks needs to be fully realized this week in Rice Eccles stadium.
Last year the loss to Utah in the snow in Pullman was one of the best college football games I have ever been to. From the conditions, to what was at stake, to the all out war that the players on the field waged for four quarters plus overtime, highlighted by Connor Halladay’s play with a lacerated liver. I think its perfectly fitting that the game ended in controversy because, frankly, the Cougs deserve at least some claim to victory that day. Both teams did, really. But the fact remains that game ended our chances for a bowl game last year and we are in the exact same position again this year. Lets be the spoilers this time. A home loss to us at this point in the season after their rousing win over Cal last week would be an absolute crusher for the Utes. I say, lets crush em and crush em good. If we do we will suddenly find ourselves a mere 3 game win streak away from stealing their spot in the potato bowl.
So far this year we are 100% in randomly running into readers at our away games, meeting Danesh at BYU and Trucoug89 at UNLV. Who’s it gonna be this week? You are likely to find us and our entourage at Lumpy’s Downtown if we don’t see you in the stadium. Keep the streak alive!
Go Cougs!
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Found this tidbit, http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/oct/30/wsu-at-utah/?print-friendly, thought it provided some good footnotes.I'm going to go ahead and state my three (more like two and an observation) keys to winning the game this weekend right now. I know I'm getting ahead of myself here, but.. you know, w/e.
Key #1: Contain the run. This applies to both punt returns and JW4 (and any other running game they might have, but I think JW4 is pretty much it). If we do this, we force them to play long fields and into passing plays, which we seem to play well against.
Key #2: No turnovers. No fumbles, no interceptions. Utah likes to capitalize on turnovers, and if we can limit this and the run, we can pretty much shut down their primary means of scoring this whole season.
Key #2.5/3 aka, just some observational stuff: We weren't perfect against Stanford, and we nearly took them to the brink. Utah isn't as good of a team, and while I'm not saying we can relax against these guys, I am saying that even with no improvement from this past weekend, we can beat the Utes if we play like we did against the Trees. However, if we clean up the messy areas from this past Saturday, and manage to get just 5% better, we can put the Utes down for the count. If we can contain them to 24 points or less, we have a pretty good chance at winning (they barely beat BYU with that amount of points).
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Completely unrelated to anything here, but of interest: Auburn released their 2013 schedule recently, and they have us marked down for 8/31/2013... labor day weekend, I believe. http://www.fbschedules.com/2012/10/auburn-tigers-announce-2013-football-schedule/
@TruCoug89 I go to 1 road game every year, and I was considering this one, until I thought about Alabama in August. Gross.
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I deleted my post. Long day. I have no clue why I didn't know this was in Utah!!! I am apparently just oblivious to the fact that Longball lives in Utah and will be at the game.
@ptowncoug3012 Next time the cougs play in Utah twice in one year we expect you to make the trip for one of those!
I enjoyed the article on Gramps! Can you believe he is 92!! I believe he is still writing articles for the game day programs, but his interviews are always great. "Choir Boy" isn't that the same as Leach's "coffee runner".
I thought what Leach said, about how we are starting to savor the 1-on-1 matchups, and are focused on doing our jobs on every individual play rather than worrying about what the score is at the end of the day.... that really encapsulated the feeling I got watching us play. There were hardly any drops, great passes, and great defense. With the exception of 2 plays, we played fantastic.Think about it... alter those two plays, and we win the game!
If we play like we did against the trees on Saturday, then 1 win seems likely, 2 wins definitely possible, and even 4 wins is within the universe of possibilities. Which, pre-game, I predicted us to go winless for the rest of the season. So that's a huge improvement.
Also, was anyone surprised to see that it was US, not Stanford, that had the grind-it-out offense? As soon as we can have enough time to take shots down field, this will be a dangerous offense.
After watching the Stanford game I think, THINK, that it is possible to win out the rest of the season. It's possible. If we can do that, we're 6-6. I may be dreaming, but I do think we can do it.
@ErikAnderson There is now an outside chance... but by no means would I predict it, and will be very, very surprised if we win 3. All that game showed us is that we're at a point where we can beat most Pac-12 teams on any given Saturday. Assuming we continue to improve at the rate we have been, I would predict that we could win 1-2 games by the end of the season.
I'll be even happier when we can put up more than 30 points against a team not named Colorado.
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@ErikAnderson @YakiCoug You mean I shouldn't start predicting 4 straight wins after 6 straight losses? That's no fun!
I already have my ticket. I've heard they are expecting it to sell out but probably not until the very last minute.
@Longball The view is pretty great (though you don't see much unless you sit high up) and it is usually pretty packe/loud. I have to figure out if I want to wear a WSU shirt and Ute hat or visa versa though. I have a student ticket, so I don't think there will be many Cougs around me to watch my back. Luckily, as long as I stick with Crimson, I'll blend in a bit.
Great post! And a fascinating weekend ahead....so glad we have power so I can watch ALL of it!
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Also just tweeted that CONFERENCE has approved Tuel's 5th year. Now up to NCAA. That would be HUGE!!
