Friday Night Football Open Thread

Submitted by turtleboy on

Utah Utes visit the Utah State Aggies at 8:00 on ESPN 2

We play Utah in a home and home series in 2014 and 2015 and we've competed with them for a few of their prospects the last 2 seasons so they're definitely worth a look.

A few notes on the Utes:

 In 2010 (their last season in the MWC) they went 10-3, spent most of the season ranked in the top 10, only losing to #4 TCU, at Notre Dame, and to #10 Boise State. They had a little bit of rough sledding their first season in the Pac12 in 2011, but didn't play either Stanford or Oregon, and finished with an 8-5 record with notable wins against Todd Grahams Pitt Panthers, dominated BYU, UCLA, and Oregon State, won at Arizona and at Washington State, lost a close 14-23 matchup at USC, and won the Sun Bowl against Georgia Tech in overtime.

2012 is the 8th year of the program under Kyle Whittingham, who replaced Urban Meyer in 2004 as Head Coach, and has been with the program since 1994(!) where he's coached the defensive line, and served as the defensive coordinator. Likely to see a lot of the same players in 2 years, and likely the same scheme since they managed a 4th place finish in the Pac-12 in their inaugural season. Definitely an up and coming program worth looking at.

 

M-Dog

September 7th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

Hey, I've got an idea:  Let's schedule USC as our first game of the year.  Let's do it in a year where we have a lot of young/new players in key positions, especially on defense.  Maybe we could even suspend a player or two for the game.  We could even play it in a NFL stadium 2000 miles away, at night.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Darth Wolverine

September 7th, 2012 at 9:28 PM ^

It's CFB and that's all I need. As much fun as I have switching between games on Saturdays and having multiple TVs running, it's also nice to focus on only one game Thursday and Friday nights. Friday games are usually extremely low key games, but sometimes they're competitive and just fun to watch.

B-Nut-GoBlue

September 7th, 2012 at 7:28 PM ^

Nice write-up, few notes in there I was unaware of.  I remember Utah State being a seemingly decent team last year, almost knocking off Auburn in the opener(?).  Gooo...Aggies!?

WolvinLA2

September 7th, 2012 at 7:40 PM ^

Yeah - outside of that crazy USC game, Utah looked like garbage in the Pac-12 last year, which says a lot.  I don't expect them to do much of anything in the conference, but luckily for them they're in the really shitty division.

Tater

September 8th, 2012 at 9:29 AM ^

That is why I don't have a lot of respect for Boise State: they are beating the same teams Utah used to beat.  Utah's performance last year was a wake-up call for those who really think the "BCS-busters" can perform as well over an entire season of good competition as they can when they only have to "get up" for one or two big games.

UofM-I-Hart

September 7th, 2012 at 7:50 PM ^

I appreciate any help please!



Tomorrow for the game, do you think I could go tomorrow about an hour or half hour before kickoff and buy a PAIR of cheap scalped tickets? Like say $20 or so each? What is the typical price for a pair of cheap scalped tickets before games like air force? And are there plenty available do you think? Again I appreciate the help, i didn't know where else to look/ ask..

Hurricane

September 7th, 2012 at 8:34 PM ^

Hochuli resides in the Phoenix metropolitan area with his wife Cathie.[9] They have six children and ten grandchildren.[2] Of the six, Shawn Hochuli played college football at Pomona College[11] and is following his father's profession as an official, currently working college football,[12] Arena Football League,[13] and arenafootball2 games.

 

Looks like you can add FBS to his resume as well.

LSAClassOf2000

September 7th, 2012 at 8:22 PM ^

That was quite a block by Utah State, but to be fair, it was a near-perfect arc in the wrong direction  on the kick. It was almost as if the Utah kicker stood there for a second - "Now, where the hell did it go?"

LSAClassOf2000

September 7th, 2012 at 8:35 PM ^

Does anyone else think "Chuckie Keeton" should win some sort of an award for Best Old School QB Name? 

That being said, it's not every day you see the punter get called for intentional grounding. 

tdcarl

September 7th, 2012 at 8:41 PM ^

Utah State's uniforms, especially their helmets, are pretty damn cool looking. And in games I don't care about I always root for the team with cooler uniforms to win, so go Aggies I guess.

Profwoot

September 7th, 2012 at 8:42 PM ^

Utah doesn't exactly have the best athletes, but their talent level is a lot higher than that of Utah State. Nevertheless, USU's option game has been very effective so far.

I trust Michigan's coaches to avoid a similar fate tomorrow.

LSAClassOf2000

September 7th, 2012 at 8:47 PM ^

This is the Utah defense that will face USC in October in Salt Lake City. I sense a fair number of "sad puppy" moments for Utes fans during that game if this is the team that comes to that game, up to and including the inability to actually execute a kick as they just displayed. 

 

willywill9

September 7th, 2012 at 8:45 PM ^

Not to jack the read but since usc was brought up, did you all see USC had a pep rally in times square today?

That got me thinking about how bad our pep rallies are. Does anyone else agree/disagree? I was at the ND game last year and the pep rally attendance was pretty poor.

TheBlueAbides

September 7th, 2012 at 8:53 PM ^

They are a decent team, i wouldnt say up and coming because as everybody knows they had some good years with brian johnson at QB, and a few talented receivers. I have a good friend who played rugby for Utah (Michigan connection, he was team mates with Houma's brother on the rugby team there) and they usually play pretty good defense, it will be interesting to see how the transition to the Pac12