Kyle gets serious respect from CBS Sports in its ranking of P5 coaches:
http://www.cbssports.com/college-foo...e-2017-season/14. Utes
Kyle Whittingham: It's hard not to be impressed by what Whittingham has accomplished at Utah. He won a bunch of games in the Mountain West, struggled after first joining the Pac-12, and is now winning a bunch of games again. And he's doing so at a school that isn't exactly located in the middle of a fertile recruiting ground.
Last edited by LA Ute; 05-11-2017 at 09:22 AM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
We're No. 2 in NFL players, with an average league finish that's closer to the bottom of our division than the top. Kyle may be great at player development and getting the maximum out of his kids, but he's nowhere near that level on Saturdays.Originally Posted by SeattleUte
Also, find one post from me that says we should have recruiting classes ranked at the level of Oregon and USC. That's a ridiculous assessment.
Coach just signed a contract extension through 2021.
http://utahutes.com/news/2017/6/9/fo...extension.aspx
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Why are you talking about Ute sports when you could be talking about politics?
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Are you telling me that we have a politics thread somewhere on here?!?! That must make for measured and informative discussion.
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Whitt's the first to admit the offense has been a limiting factor, even as we've ground out some nice wins against the PAC's elite. Also, while nobody will ever accuse KW of being an offensive-minded coach, he made a bold move in the offensive coaching changes, after giving it more time than the yearly revolving door earlier in his tenure.
I was a little leery of the Taylor hiring, but he played QB in the league, and clearly is an innovative thinker, who can develop QBs. The other positive move by Whitt is not just keeping Harding, but elevating him to AHC... after some in-game sparks between them. An egomaniac would view Harding as a threat.
Can KW get us over the hump by 2021? He's been a steady builder, hopefully this last part of the puzzle gets figured out.
Ironically, I think Morgan Scalley may be a key - if he can signal to Whitt that putting the D in some bad situations from turnovers is OK, in the larger scheme - KW may be less likely to go conservative. And I think our OL won't be good enough to just smashmouth our way out of concerns with the air game. Another bit of evidence: Stanford. You just can't be one dimensional and expect to get to the top.
What our fans call "going conservative," everyone else in the football world calls "smart football." If you have a double digit lead in the 4th quarter, and if you want to win, you take care of the ball and you run out the clock.
Stark contrast to how his last extension went down. Good.
“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”
Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
I think most people's complaints with "going conservative" stem from games like the BYU games. We've averaged a 14 point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Yet win by an average of 6 points.
Whereas is we could get another score in the fourth quarter, we would win a lot of those games by 10-21 points instead of six and everything "feels" different.
I am optimistic that the offense will be more productive, score more points, score touchdowns, not field goals, in the redzone, pass for a higher completion percentage and have fewer 3 and outs.
The pessimist in me says that until the plan to win painted on the team room changes in order from: 1. Play great defense. 2. Don't turn the ball over. 3. Win the special teams battle. 4. Score in the redzone, those things above will not dramatically change.
One thing I would like to come up with is some criteria for us to judge whether the offense has more freedom this year than in the past. There are a number of things I can think of: offensive scores, touchdowns in the redzone, pass/run ratio, chunk plays of greater than 20 yards (although I believe we were pretty good on this last year), turnovers is still an important statistic, number of punts. What other criteria can we look at? Is margin of victory relevant? Fourth quarter specific stats in games where we lead by 7+ entering the 4th quarter?
What was it Crowton said after losing to Air Force, something about wanting to win by 9 instead of by 2?
"It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant
I think it's from the games we have actually lost. We have lost leads to teams occasionally over the years. Whenever it happens, Whitt is accused of shutting down the offense and sitting on the ball.
Two things: (1) I'm not sure we really did shut down the offense in all of those losses, and (2) our selective memories forget the dozens of games we have won by effectively controlling the clock with a lead.
Complicating matters is the fact that all of these things are moving targets. We were a top red zone team two years ago and a bottom red zone team last season. We had almost no chunk plays two years ago, and we were heavily reliant on them last season.
I think most of these fluctuations can be ascribed to randomness and personnel much more than to how much freedom the offense has had. Our offense has typically had just about as much freedom as it has earned.
One thing we have been pretty good at in recent years is not turning the ball over. That is an absolute must for a team like Utah to be successful against more talented teams.
Great points Sancho. I would say that I would lump the BYU games into the games we lost as well. The difference is the games we lost were vs P5 schools with talent everywhere vs BYU who just isn't nearly as talented and those games end up wins.
I watch highlights of the '16 game this morning. It was just as frustrating as I remembered it.
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Last year I was watching the BYU game in RES with my son. When Utah got the ball and needed to run out the clock, I told my son: "Now watch. We'll try nothing but running plays and if we don't get a first down and have to punt, we'll give BYU 10-20 yard chunk plays over and over and they'll march down the field until they get into the red zone, and then we will try to beat them there."
And that's just what happened. We won on the last play of the game. I walked away feeling more relieved than jubilant.
I know that Kyle is a very smart guy and plays the percentages and he wins more close games than he loses. I guess that is smart football. I also guess I am an unsophisticated fan. I Just don't enjoy watching that kind of football over and over and I think I have a lot of company. I'd like to see us simply beat teams more often instead of trying to outlast them. So there it is.
Like UTEopia said, Kyle's plan to win, in order of priority, is:
1. Play great defense.
2. Don't turn the ball over.
3. Win the special teams battle.
4. Score in the redzone.
To me that looks like conservative football that places very little emphasis on offense. I'd like to see it change and in my opinion we will have hard time winning a championship it it doesn't.
Deposit $.02.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I'm not sure what the lists from other coaches look like, but I bet they are pretty similar, especially for the successful coaches. You don't know the names of the coaches whose lists look different because those coaches don't have jobs for long enough.
I think we've outperformed our talent level for years. Championships will come when we have better players, and we're moving in the right direction in that. We have missed out on exactly 0 championships due to our style of play.
I just don't see how we can possibly know that. Our offense generally has not won games for us when it counts -- e.g., getting first downs or touchdowns when desperately needed. We have not scored well enough to succeed in the PAC-12. There are many examples. Kyle has emphasized defense over offense. That seems undeniable to me. It also seems that Kyle gets that now. I hope that decision plays out the way it needs to.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I think we missed out on one last year. With how easy our schedule was, last year was our shot and our offense was non-existent and cost us a realistic shot at the playoffs.
We could have beat Washington, we had three shots in the red zone vs Colorado to start the third quarter, we should have beaten Cal and Oregon.
There was no excuse for us not winning the south last year. Hell, the only reason we didn't win the south was because we had one of the worst P5 red zone offenses in the country.
Our offensive style of play last year cost us a lot, which is why I think Whitt finally cut ties with ARod and risked losing Harding.
USC was the best team in the south last year. We were rather lucky to beat them. We probably don't beat them playing a style other than the style we played.
Again, the titles will come when the players come. This is how college football works. The style of play is secondary to that. Teams do win with our style of play, so I don't think you can pin our lack of Pac-12 titles on our style. In the Pac-12 alone, Stanford, USC, and UW have all won titles playing a style very similar to our own.
I think you and I are talking past each other. When I talk about "style,", I really mean attention to offense. We beat USC because our offense clicked that day. I don't like to say we were lucky to beat anyone; we outplayed them. When those schools you mentioned won the conference, they did so with a good, consistent offense that could beat other teams by getting crucial 1st downs and scoring when they needed to. We are still developing the ability to do those two things.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Okay. I get it.
We might still disagree though. You think our offense has struggled primarily because Coach Whittingham never gave it enough attention or didn't know how to give it attention or something. Or maybe you believe we have been trying to run the wrong style of offense. I think it has struggled mainly due to personnel. I think our scheme, plan, etc has been fine (the kind of scheme that wins titles for better teams). I think we just haven't had the WRs, QBs, and - at times - linemen to win a conference title.
Also, we beat them because of the two players on the field from Spanish Fork, ours (Asiata) came up with a fumble that theirs (Gustin) whiffed on. I give Whit all the credit on that play.
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“It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”
Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
We also beat USC because of the schedule. They had Alabama and Stanford before us.
That may be the only "scheduled" winwe get against USC.
And we blew it. And USC looks really good again.
We should have won the south last year.
We just put more players in the draft than any team in school history, and you want to say we outperformed our talent level by finishing third in a six-team division?
I don't mind Kyle's scheme -- I believe in power football and would never want to be like Texas Tech -- and he gets the most out of his players Sunday-Friday. But he re-hired a failed OC in A-Rod, and that makes losses last year to Cal and Oregon unforgivable.
I'd even add the Colorado loss as unforgivable. We had the ball in the red zone three straight possessions to start the third quarter and came away with 6 points.
We should have blown the kid off that game early.
Perhaps, but I'll also give credit to CU's defense, which was pretty good all year long.
Cal's and Oregon's defenses were horrible, but looked great against us and probably matched season-bests in many categories when they played us.
And I thought it was just that Oregon's talent gelled against us and we were pretty much powerless to do anything about it. (TIC)
Last edited by LA Ute; 06-12-2017 at 03:49 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I think the Oregon game was all about how terrible our offense was. We should have been able to score more and we should have won that game 45-28.
We should be able to score what opposing defenses average giving up.
Especially with three OL in the NFL, a NFL RB and a NFL WR.
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