Looking ahead to game 1 of 2015

Submitted by Bohica on

Not sure if it has been noted here, but Utah just lost 2 pretty good coaches (DC and DL). Certainly does not hurt our chances at there place next year.

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The Man Down T…

December 24th, 2014 at 10:48 AM ^

will be Harbaugh!!  He will either make our current QB's a lot better or he will go crazy and take one of their uniforms and run onto the field pretending to be them and win the game!  Or he will demonic possess one of the QB's and do an Avatar style symbiotic QB merge.   Or stare so intently at the opposing QB that said QB wilts like a dried up daisy!  Whichever way, we're good!!!

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FreddieMercuryHayes

December 24th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^

All fo 2015 depends on who the HC is.  If it's Harbaugh, I think the team will be competative in all games and see success throughout the season.  I know QB is a big question mark, but with competant coaching and game planning I feel a good staff will be able to mitigate the weaknessess of the team instead of trying to highlight them.

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MikeCohodes

December 24th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^

the new coach can win on the road, something Hoke didn't excel at, we should be OK at Utah next year. I'm always wary of mountain air games though. I think this one is our toughest road game on the schedule in 2015.

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TESOE

December 24th, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^

Effect of altitude on football performance.

Levine BD1, Stray-Gundersen J, Mehta RD.

 

Abstract

Altitude will impact football performance through two separate and parallel pathways related to the hypobaric (physical) and hypoxic (physiological) components of terrestrial altitude: (a) the decrease in partial pressure of oxygen reduces maximal oxygen uptake and impairs "aerobic" performance by reducing maximal aerobic power, increasing the relative intensity of any given absolute level of work, and delaying recovery of high-energy phosphates between high-intensity "interval" type efforts; (b) the decrease in air density reduces air resistance which will facilitate high-velocity running, but will also alter drag and lift thereby impairing sensorimotor skills. These effects appear to have their greatest impact very early in the altitude exposure, and their physiological/neurosensory consequences are ameliorated by acclimatization, though the extent of restoration of sea level type performance depends on the absolute magnitude of the competing and living altitudes.

Magnitude aside I don't think this makes for much advantage for trained athletes. I few days of acclimatizing and extra aerobic work. The real challenge is a team that kicked Michigan around not too long ago. Not to mention Michigan teams are road warriors (/s). And ... in summation... Peppers.

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dothepose

December 24th, 2014 at 10:11 AM ^

Our RB's next year should be awesome. Isaac, Smith, Green, Johnson. That type of competition should give us a great running game whoever comes into coach. I have to believe that the next coach will improve our offensive line just by not having Funk (who hopefully isn't retained).

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Leonhall

December 24th, 2014 at 10:14 AM ^

Honestly, qb will be a question mark next season but with a more experienced line as well as RB's, more than likely the qb play will be better than this year. Hard to see that now, but our qb play was really bad last year. I think you'll see more of a management qb next year who will gradually improve.



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maize-blue

December 24th, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^

If we have a QB that can complete passes downfield and not turn it over, I'd expect to win. There wasn't much of a deeper/downfield passing threat this season.

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Brady Elliott

December 24th, 2014 at 10:17 AM ^

I'm more concerned with how we finish. There have been enough hot starts under RR and Hoke. That fizzled into a subpar/mediocre year. I just hope to see incremental improvement throughout the year.

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BigBlue02

December 24th, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^

Looking ahead-it will be an amazing game! I live here in Utah and my soon-to-be wife let me plan our wedding around the game. We will be renting a suite and getting the band back together to watch the game at Rice Eccles. Family and friends will come in Thursday, go to the game, have a day to recover, then we are getting married at Rice Eccles stadium on Saturday. Should be a good time! Now what were we talking about? Oh yeah, the DC and the DLine coach. As long as Whittingham is there, they will be tough on defense. I will also warn you right now, the QB will give us fits. Really athletic and doesn't hesitate to take off. He is really erratic though, so I'm hoping we catch him on one of his bad days.

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gwkrlghl

December 24th, 2014 at 11:40 AM ^

I just won't feel good about that game till I see how our QB does. Utah is a fairly fierce road environment and it'll be a night game, season opener. It'll be tough to play there.

We'll probably have to rely heavily on the run game which should actually be pretty good next year

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Salinger

December 24th, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^

for talking about facts and football. I'm so used to pure speculation these days that this little nugget is like finding water in a desert. Cheers to you.

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alum96

December 24th, 2014 at 11:59 AM ^

Whittingham is an excellent coach and is a DC himself from his prior life and Utah has lived off defense and special teams in his career so just like narduzzi leaving MSU I dont expect much change to their defense.   They do lose their best defensive player to the draft at least.

If you rank all 12 games next year there is a case to be made this is the 3rd toughest of the year.  Road game, breaking in a new QB, new offensive system, new coaches, tough environment, vs a real coach with a solid team.

It is going to be a very tough game.  As for predictions, 2015 football is going to be impossible to predict until we see what level of QB play we are going to get.    But even if you are in the bullish 9-3 camp, this has a high probability to be one of those 3.

 

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Perkis-Size Me

December 24th, 2014 at 12:13 PM ^

Until proven otherwise, we have no QB. Utah losing those guys might help, but as long as we have no QB, we will be fighting an uphill battle to win games against any team with a pulse.

And road games have not been this team's friend. Yeah that might've been a product of Hoke, but still, until proven otherwise, we can't win road games.



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