Utah Snowflakes: Offense

Receiving corps is badass. QB group (that'll actually play this season) is not badass. OLine was average. The running game was below average. Regarding the backfield: Isaac could be deadly running wheel routes -- and maybe finds his groove carrying the ball. Smith has his power moments but doesn't have the gears or great vision. Green looks slow and confused. For whatever reason, Derrick runs straight into players (both offensive and defensive) and goes straight down. He has zero balance and vision. The brightside, however, is our best back is probably Johnson. So there's hope...

Utah is probably the third best team we'll face this year. We lost by 7 in the toughest environment we'll be in all year. And that's after the bad INTs and missed opportunities. There was a confidence that has been missing for a long time. This team will exceed our expectations. Guaranteed.

Positive! No sacks allowed!

Rudock did a lot of things well.

Our rb's are just bad, we need Drake back. Rudock was exactly what I expected except for the pick 6 which was the game

We're stuck with what we have. Rudock looks spotty, but can we expect more out of Morris?

I'm glad there guys fought hard, but just a lot of little missteps and blown opportunities that were completely on execution.

By mid October this team will be pretty good IMO. Rudock will settle in, I'm happy that we have decent weapons at WR. Hopefully Drake comes back or Ty takes the RB role. We need a little more burst there.

People who are saying Perry ran the wrong route on the pick 6: Please stop. Jake threw into coverage, DB jumped the route bc Jake turned on his blinker and that was that. What did you want Perry to do, run the stop to 3 yds instead of 5?

Impressed by the WRs.  Darboh had one bad drop that we needed, but produced 100 yards, made a couple pretty tough catches in traffic for first downs and the TD when the corner made a really good play on the ball but Darboh secured it.  Chesson beat his man deep twice, we just need to hit it.  Perry looks like a good blocker and makes bubbles a weapon.  Needs to fix the recognition on the first INT though.  Butt was as good as we expecetd. OL needs to improve, especially in run blocking, but I think Utah's DL is good.  Smith had some positives in that he basically adds a yard or two to every run, but missed a big play in the running game and had that drop.  Isaac looked fine in relatively limited opportunities.  Rudock needs to play better, obviously.  If he hits those two balls to Chesson or doesn't throw the pick six, that's a different game.

Overall, most of the flaws seem fixable, unlike last year when we were just clueless.  I think we're an 8-4 team that lost to a 9-3 team on the road.

Rudock is who we saw at Iowa. I've watched them every year he was there. Every game. This is the same dude. Overthrows on wide open receivers are his specialty outside of the 3yd out on 3rd and 5.

That being said I think we have to go with him moving fwd. Jim didn't even seem to think about putting Morris in there.

I like smith as a RB but he was missing holes everywhere tonight(caveat that he didn't have many but missed a good chunk of them). I think Isaac takes over the bulk of the RB duties. His vision and speed seemed muuuuch better, but no one matches Deveon's nasty running style. I just don't think that's enough to hold down the spot, we need much more production and the line has something to do with it. They were awful in run blocking tonight. Just awful.

All I can say is I'm pumped for this year. My one true hope is that some major improvements can be picked up and recognized, because the guys who truly will turn this program around are still watching the TV and trying to figure out if this is something they should sign up for. This was a tough first game for a new program on the road, and I think the second half was very promising for what is possible with this team. I think by the time we face BYU this team will make a lot of solid improvement. Disappointing first game maybe but also very hopeful for what comes of this team still.

It is frustrating when teams that run a pro style offense are out of sync and not in a rhythm and they don't at least try a series in hurry up with spread elements. Why not just have a serious in the 2nd or 3rd quarter with a 4 minute drill and 4 wide. It is just frustrating to score on the two minute drill at the end of the game after struggling to score td's all night.

For some reason I expected Rudock to be as good as Cook. Silly me.

well, we have some receivers and OL that can pass block at S decent level. they also opened enough holes in the run game that we should have had 25-35 more yards at least, and at key junctures. Butt's as good as advertised. No RB tonight and QB made some whopper mistakes. I think they'll get better.

I seem to be in the minority here, but I think the problems in the passing game are more easily fixed than the problems with the running game; and the running game was not nearly good enough to win more than 7 games.

I think most people would look at the 2.6 YPC average and say that was indicative of how bad the run game was, but I think there's an even worse stat: the long run was 7 yards (of which there was only one), and the next longest run was 5 yards.  That's just... bad.

OL couldn't block power for shit tonight, but I'll bet you (yes, you!) a whole dollar that they'll be blocking power pretty well by the end of the year. This coaching staff is not going to panic because they didn't know what they were doing against a great front 7 like Utah has and start trying a ton of OZ or doing a bunch of BS gimmicks.

If they have to sacrifice the whole season and end up with a cruddy first year record, they will do it so that these guys learn the new base play that they must make go. And I trust by the end of the year they'll have learned.

The offense had good communication. I was at the game and it got seriously loud. Rudock and the line communicated well. No botched snaps. Few offensive penalties. The composure and organization of the offense felt positive. Subbing of personnel looked crisp. Little things, but they add up.

WRs were much better than I expected.  Ruddock was much worse than I expected.  Fix Ruddock and this team is perfectly fine. 

First half playcalling was frustrating at times with the amount of running between the tackles that clearly was not working.  In the 2nd half, the passing opened up the run game and the balance was much better.  I think Michigan is going to have to pass more to set up the run.  Teams still don't respect our passing game, and tonight's performance really didn't do much to change it.

To those arguing that Morris should have come in the game, you do realize that you are on the same side as Colin Cowherd and David Brandon.

or did Kalis miss the fucking pull around block on 4th and 1?