The #7 Utah Utes (10-0) travel to San Diego this weekend for a little sun and a little tune up before the Holy War next week. The San Diego State Aztecs (1-9) have been decimated with injuries this year and have only been able to muster up one win on the season against the very lowly Idaho Vandals.
With the Utes coming off a longer than usual week and an emotion win over a very tough TCU Horned Frogs team last thursday night, look for the Utes to set a tempo early and run all over the depleated Aztecs who have one of the worst rushing defenses in the nation.
Utah can not afford to look past any team this year as there are only two games left and the offense has only really put a full game together once this year. Look for the offense to establish some consistency and confidence that they can take with them into next week. Also look for the starters to come out early if the game gets out of hand.
The Utes had yet another miraculous come from behind victory at home last thursday in Rice-Eccles Stadium. With the help of TCU's freshman place kicker's two missed field goals, the Utes were able to drive down the field and score the game winning touchdown with just 0:47 to play in the game.
The drive was indicative of the way the offense plays when Brian Johnson is able to quickly make play calls at the line and keep the defense off balance. All the previous drives in the game were plagued with miscues from the offense. When a drive was being sustained, it was killed by trying to get to cute with the play calling.
In the end it was Brian's heroics that won the day to keep the Utes a perfect 10-0. Following the win the Utes moved up in the BCS poll from 9 to 7 and keep their hopes alive of getting to the BCS for the second time in 5 years.
The Utes are headed to Albuquerque
to take on the Lobos.The Utes look to
come out with another victory and continue the path to another BCS
appearance.The Lobos on the other hand,
are fight to stay bowl eligible.
Utah
is coming off a bye week, which has allowed them to do extra preparation for
this game, but they could also be rusty.New Mexico
had a solid victory over San Diego State 2 week ago, but followed it up with a
poor performance at Air Force last week.Rocky Long always seems to have his team prepared to face the Utes and
this week will be no exception.
Kyle Whittingham is 3-0 coming off a bye week in his
coaching tenure with the Utes, so that proves Utah can and will be ready to play following
the bye week.The last time Utah headed to Albuquerque
with an 8-0 records, they lost 23-21 to the Lobos.Whittingham has used the experience as a
motivator for his team and to remind them that they cannot over look anyone.
This should be tough battle for both teams and I expect it
to be close.The game will be televised
on The Mtn. and can be heard on KALL 700 AM .
Coach Whit travelled back to Bristol, Connecticut to hang out with the boys on the ESPN campus. He had several interviews on both television and radio. Here is one of his interviews on while visiting.
The day at ESPN will give the program more national attention and exposure to help in recruiting efforts and also give the pollsters a name and face to the Ute program.
Let's hope we can live up to the hype. UNM is next on November 1st. The offense had better show up, unlike two years ago in Albuquerque.
The new polls are out and they have the Utes just outside the Top 10. Utah is ranked 12 in the AP Poll (up 2 spots), 12 in the Harris Poll (up 2 spots) and 12 in the USA/Today Coaches Poll (up 1 spot).
Also, the first BCS standings appeared this week and they have the Utes at 11.
This ranking was not as high as initially believed they would be, but if the season ended today, they would be guaranteed an at large birth at this ranking.
In comparison, the 2004 Utah team was ranked 7 when the first BCS poll came out.
With the loss of TDS yesterday to TCU, we are in complete
control of our own destiny to get to a 2nd BCS bowl game.
TDS was the only Non-BCS team ahead of us in the polls and
assuming we win on Saturday, we'll be the highest ranked Non-BCS team.
Now...don't get too comfortable.An undefeated season is needed for us to go
to the BCS and it isn't a guarantee we'll get there even if we do go
undefeated.Boise State
is clipping right at our heels and we need to prove that we are the Non-BCS
team that is worthy to go.
We will have the advantage since we are higher ranked now
and we have the potential to still play 2 ranked teams in our remaining
games.Boise
only has one potential ranked team in Fresno State
(who is not currently ranked).This
means our SOS will be better, so we should be better off in the computer
rankings, but we still need to improve how the nation views our team.We've allowed teams to hang around and haven't
put up the big score against a recognized team yet.We need to get one of those to give our team some
national prominence.
We had better put things together and prove that we can play
an entire game at a high level.After
what I saw out of TCU last night against TDS, they'll come in here fired up and
will want to knock us off.They feel
they still have a shot at the BCS because their only loss so far has been on
the road against Oklahoma.We'll need to play solid offensive and
defensive games against TCU and TDS.
We definitely have all the pieces we need to put together
another trip to a BCS game, but I lack confidence in this team as opposed to
2004 because we haven't proven that offensively we can put together a full
game.We have been relying on our
defense almost all season and need the offense and special teams to continue to
make plays when they are needed if we want to crash the BCS party again.
The 13th ranked Utes head to Laramie, Wyoming
to take on the Wyoming Cowboys.The
biggest talk around this game is that Wyoming
will want revenge for the 50-0 loss they received from the Utes last year at
Rice Eccles Stadium.
The weather is supposed to be a big factor in this game as a
major storm is expected to hit Wyoming
today.The Utes should dominate this
game from start to end since Wyoming
has yet to prove that they can compete against any teams that are good.Wyoming has
only managed to score 3 points thus far in Mountain West Conference games and
they are facing a tough Utah
defense today.
This should be a scrappy game that the Utes should manage to
dominate and easily pull out a victory.This game will likely stay close if the weather is poor, but should be
fully dominated by the Utes.
Kickoff is set for 12:00 PM MT and the game can be seen on
The Mtn.The game can also be heard on
KALL 700 AM.
The Utes were slightly rewarded for their last second
victory over Oregon
State on Thursday
night.Utah moved up two spots to 13 in the
USA/Today Coaches Poll, up two spots to 13 in the Harris Poll and up one spot to 14 in the
AP Media Poll.
The Utes have been ranked in the top 25 since beating Michigan in the first
game of the season.
If there was ever a good time for the Utes to make a
statement in their running for the BCS, that time is now.Oregon
State shocked the country
as they knocked off USC for the 2nd time in 3 years.USC was ranked #1 heading into that game.
With the victory over USC, Oregon State
has stirred up the national media and now they will be looking this game much
closer than before.Utah
is coming off a lackluster performance against Weber State.They dominated the game until the 2nd string
entered the game and allowed Weber to score two late touchdowns to make the
victory look less impressive.As a
result, the Utes were only able to climb two spots in the polls.They need to make a statement now if they are
to get any credible respect.
Utah's defense must perform
at a high level tonight against Oregon
State.They will need to dominate in the box because
Jaquez Rogers tore apart the USC run defense.We have a strong secondary that can handle the pass game as long as they
know they don't need to help out on the run.Utah's front seven will determine how
successful Utah
will be in tonight's game.
On the other side of the ball, Brian Johnson needs to put
together a solid performance.He can't
have the turnover problems that he had against Air Force and the Oregon State
defense likes to throw out confusing looks, so he needs to make his reads and
trust them.The run game can work with
Mack and Asiata, but Johnson needs to keep the Beavers honest defensively. If the offense plays mediocre, then we're in
for trouble.
As I stated earlier, we need to make a statement and we need
to make it now!!
Kickoff is at 7 PM and will be televised on Versus .Radio broadcast will be aired locally on KALL
700 AM .
Ute Football