Utah 38

Utah State 18

-Dave Arslanian should take full responsibility for this Aggie loss. He put the Aggies out of decent FG range, therefore costing the Ags a chance to tie the score late in the game when he argued a no-call and got a PF.

-R/E looked great at near capacity. Even the student section was completely full!!

-Mike Anderson was not the best RB out there tonight on the field. DeMario Brown is better, but both will be playing on Sunday somewhere next year.

-Game balls go to Jay Hill and Brandon Dart. This will be a game that Hill will never forget, I’m sure. Dart played really well inside the red zone.

-Arceneaux looked pretty awful for most of the first half. His timing was off and seemed to be keying only on one receiver.

-Why did Tommy Lee call a run play when Darnell had to sit out when he got hurt? Everyone in the stands new Croshaw was going to hand it off. The Ags read that beautifully and got to Mike Anderson before he knew what hit him. Why not throw a curve ball and air it out deep. What would it have hurt? It would have been no different than a punt if the Aggies picked it off.

-It was nice to see a Ute TE utilized as such tonight. I wonder if this will bring about a permanent change in the way Tommy Lee approaches his passing schemes? Probably not.

-Where was Donny Utu tonight? What about Dennis Smith? Are we going to see this guy play?

- Chris Christiansen had a tough time catching the ball tonight. Everyone is entitled to an off night.

-The more I watch Stevonne Smith, the more I’m impressed.

-What was up with I-15 after the game? I live in P.G. and it took me an hour and a half to get home. They announced for the BYU games they weren't going to shut down the freeway at 10pm. Why not leave it open for Utah fans as well?

-Hats off to the events staff at the stadium for the pregame festivities. My 3 year old daughter had a blast. She got her face painted, had a caricature done of her, had a clown make her a balloon hat, got to play on a trampoline, and best of all, all of it was free! Nice job. Keep it up.

Good luck Utes against the Rebels next week!

I know its early and I don't think that this team has hit its stride yet but there is something missing. To be honest I think we were lucky to walk away from this one. Utes got all the breaks including the calls. That 3rd down pass interference no call that drew the unsportsmanlike against USU was huge for the Utes. IMO the Ute defender tackled the USU receiver before the quarterback left the pocket. Dave Arslanian was right with his argument but stupid to pick up the penalty. I haven't seen the replay yet but from my angle it was a blown call in the Utes favor. It could of completely changed the game. My evaluation per position...

QB- Darnell played poorly overall. He underthrew several WR and never really used his feet to move the team. I love the Utes short passing game but at some point they are going to have to use the deep middle. The screens won't work against defenses with speed. Someone will return a screen the other way for a TD if they don't go downfield.

WR- With the exception of S. Smith and Nichol (TE) the rest played poorly. Christenson's tip ball that was picked could of changed the outcome of the game. Bendinger has the hands of a goat. Utu made a huge 3rd down play in the 1st half. They blocked well but didn't get open much, success was on screens only.

RB- Anderson was solid. Very big for the Utes. Bacon was OK.

OL- Couldn't really establish the running game until early in the 4th quarter. Inconsistent haven't dominated like I thought they would. Darnell took to many hits, you could of heard a pin drop when he went out for that one play. They need Kassotis and McKane back.

DL- Very disappointing. Frank made a big play (sack) in the 3rd quarter on the drive when they missed the first field goal. Kemoeatu played OK, the rest were bad. Bowers looked lost at times and Seals/Ta'amu were invisible. I would love to see Garret Smith get more PT. The Utes D Line was pushed around all night.

LB- Last year I think the DLine freed up the LB's to go after people. So far this year I think the LB have disappointed including Olevao. D. Brown was a good back but made Olevao, Tufunga, and Dart look bad, way to many missed tackles. I love Olevao but lets put a rest on the Morris comparisons until the D and he can earn more respect. In general it looked like they we're playing on roller skates (going backwards). Where is Lave? I get the feeling he's in the dog house plus he looks heavy.

DB- Played huge. Hill's two picks were the reason the Utes pulled this out. A. Dyson is a great cover guy, he dropped a pick and potential TD in the first half but looked good. It was great to see Dart get back on the field, although he seems to give a lot of late hits/cheapshots. I think his attitude and flexibility to play LB in passing situations benefits the D. Hopefully his injury (I think a hamstring) won't keep him out to long. Teneil also played well. Jeff Ray has been a good back up.

Special Teams- Punt teams didn't make any friends in the first quarter but I think most of that was on the offense. Hunter was below average. Whetman continues to be consistent.

Conclusion- This team needs to be more physical on both sides of the ball. Its rare to win by 20 points and not control the lines of scrimmage on either side. They can't count on calls going their way and opportunistic turnovers all year. Still 2-0 is still 2-0...

Okay, now that I have seen my first full game of this team (I was out of town for WSU) I'm ready to give some preliminary comments and evaluations.

Quarterback: Arceneaux had a decent game and made some big plays on third downs which I liked. I am glad to see him stay in the pocket and show patience that is obviously a result of maturity. That said, he didn't scramble once yesterday and to me that has got to be part of what makes him dangerous/what teams respect about him. I don't want him hurt of course, by Elway and others have shown you can pick up twenty yards without getting touched. My heart stopped in the 1st quarter when he went down as I'm sure all of yours did. All in all good distribution to the various receivers backs and ends. B

Running backs: Mike Andersen looked good again as did Omar bacon. Andersen is a great back and even though he got 21 carries, I want to see it be more like 30. He is a work horse and we need to use him to wear defenses down. It was interesting to note that we never used an I formation all night and the one or two time we used a two back set it was split backs shaded to one side in a short yardage situation. Do we not have a fullback? If not then I commend the coaches for the good use of a setback to adapt. I was also impressed more than ever with the speed of Bacon. I would like to see them try to get him around the corner a couple more times or maybe throw him a screen to take advantage of his open field speed. A-

Receivers: Nice to see one of our JC guys have a good game in Steve Smith (no.7). He has nice speed and made a couple nice catches on comebacks. Christiansen (have I got the name right, the redheaded kid?) also had a nice game though he will not surprise teams again like he did at WSU. Bendinger continues to have board hands which is too bad considering the physical talents. Overall, I thought distribution among them was good and that they will improve, no worries here. B

Tight End: Andy who? Nickel had a great game with 4 snags two of which were for scores. When we do get Kassotis back, I really hope to see them in the game at the same time. Nice to see Utah throw at its tight ends. A

Offensive line: Though not by any means a dominating performance, Arceneaux was never sacked and rarely hurried. In addition, there were multiple runs that were for ten or more, but not as many as there should be with the quality of backs we have. Overall a good game, but improvement is needed if we are to beat better teams than USU. B

Defensive Line: While Brown is a great running back, there is no excuse for giving up 130 yards to one guy, especially when the opponent is USU. We did a good job of rushing the quarterback, but their use of misdirection really caused us some problems and rarely did we beat any of their offensive lineman one on one. C+

Linebackers: Same criticism as the D-Line got. We must be able to recognize misdirection and get to the ball. We have the horses to be a good run stopping team but you wouldn't have known it last night. Olevao had his name announce maybe once last night. I realize that teams are trying to go away from him, but we need to be creative about getting him more involved. Pass protection by the linebackers was good overall. B-

D-Backs: Mixed reviews here. There were many plays when I thought the play was outstanding both as a group and as individuals, other times they looked lost and got beat, though we never gave up a long touchdown. We are not likely to face a great passing attack anytime soon which is good, hopefully the talent we have can mature a bit as it must if we are to have a chance in Provo this year. B-

Special Teams: I am confident that Whetman is the real deal though he didn't have to prove it yesterday. No real mistakes here, but no real lift either. B

Coaching: I will reiterate what I said above about more carries for Mike Andersen. I realize we have two back who we must involve, but the running game needs to be our bread and butter even more than it is now. One thing I could not understand was play calling to third down. At least twice we had third and 1 or 2 and asked Arceneaux to throw a difficult out, which he completed once, but didn't at least two other times. Hello? How can you possibly not hand off to your all american on third and short? What kind of message does it send the line that you don't have the confidence to let them get him one yard? Otherwise, I though we had a good mix and adapted well to what they gave us, the throw back to the tight end was especially well designed and executed. Not a bad second effort here and you must commend they coaching staff for the massive reduction in offensive penalties and mental errors. B

The U students have been criticized quite a bit on this board for their non participation. I would just like to point out that the student sections, student guest tickets, and general admission tickets sold out well in advance of kick off. The East, North, and South sides were all packed. The West side, however, never got more than maybe 3/4ths full, and never sold out as far as I know. Kudos to the great student support, shame on the alumni who watched it on TV.

Thanks for taking the time to read, correct me if you must.

GO UTES!!!!

Offensive Line - They did give up one sack that I remember. Also, it took them awhile to the the running game fired up (just like the WSU game). The first ten minutes looked absolutely dismal.

Kicking - Don't forget that none of Whetman's kickoffs were returned. He buried the ball deep into the end zone every time.

Student section fans - I was sort of disappointed, actually. There were a lot of Aggies in our student section. I sat in front of a group of them that kept yelling "Put in Feterik . . . put in Morris" (can anyone explain that to me?!) When I got to the stadium (5:15 pm) the student guest passes had been sold out. Someone I had brought with me didn't have a way to get in (the rest of the seats were "sold out" too). I assume many of these guest passes were sold to USU fans, just like last year when it seemed that any BYU fan could get a hold of student section tickets.

Also, is it just me, or was there absolutely no pageantry to the Homecoming ceremonies?

When the Aggies took the field before the game, you could tell by sheer body language that they were ready to play. I thought the Utes were ready too, but not nearly as enthusiastic. And that's ok because excessive enthusiasm can get you into trouble (just ask those "excessively celebrating" Aggies). Anyway, it didn't take me long to realize I was dead wrong about the Utes. That first quarter was embarrassing. The Aggie defense looked like it knew more about what Utah was supposed to do than the Utes did. It was almost like the keystone cops were out there posing as Utes. You couldn't have scripted a better display of bumbling. Once the Aggies were up 10-0 (which didn't take long), my sister-in-law and her pro-BYU husband who were our guests at the game turned to me and said, "what happened to that great team we've been hearing about?" All I could say was, "I don't know, I guess the week off has really thrown them out of sync."

And now, the more I think about it, the more I tend to believe that is exactly the case. It is like the Utes have now had to endure two "first games" this season. Now we all know (from past Ute experience) that the greatest improvement occurs between the first and second games of the year. But this year, they played one game and then took a break. So it's almost like they had to play that first game over again. At least that's how it looked at the start of the game. But unlike Wazzu, this opponent had 2 solid games under their belt. And the difference really showed throughout the game. I thought there were moments when the Ute team really clicked. There was a stretch where they scored 21 unanswered points in the first half, and several impressive drives in the second. But during the rest of the game, the fluid Aggie machine received little effective counteraction. Still, those moments of Ute brilliance give me good reason to hope. I still don't know how good this team is, but I expect to see great improvement between this game and the UNLV game. And perhaps the poor performance will give the Utes strong motivation, which couldn't come at a better time. After all, this week we have a conference game, and a win puts the Utes in the same position as BYU as far as the standings are concerned. If the Utes improve and gain some momentum, they may be in for a good year. After all, if you win, it doesn't matter how poorly you played in your first few games. The important thing is to improve each week, gain some momentum, and continue executing at a high level throughout the conference race.

Deposit: 2 cents

-- GO UTES !!!!!!!!!!!!

Haven't seen any posts from Aggies yet on your board so I wanted to jump in. I was at the game and although I felt bad that the Aggies lost I still had a good time. I feel like the Aggies would have had a good shot at making it a game if they hadn't made as many mistakes as they did. They seemed to self destruct at times but they do have a relatively young team so you have to expect this. Although I didn't see a replay, I hear from others that Crosby didn't step out of bounds on his long run in the third quarter. It is too bad that calls like this take place but they always will. Momentum is a big part of college football as well as all sports and I wonder how this may or may not of affected the game. You may or may not agree but I believe that DeMario Brown was the best running back on the field. He created most of his yards. You may also agree or not agree but I feel that Utah State is closer to the Utes level of play than many may care to admit. Although it has been a one sided rivalry for many years it is always fun to go to battle against the Utes. The Aggies now have two weeks to prepare for the Cougars. If the Aggies can cut down on their mistakes I feel they can make it a close game and possibly steal it away in the end. It is always a wild time in Logan when we get the Cougars in town. I'm sure most of the Ute fans will be cheering us on. See you in Logan next year!

PS. You may say otherwise but it is too bad that we (BYU, Utah and Utah State) are not in the same conference.

There were some very good highlights in my book:

The Utes got down 10-0 early, and it could've very well been 14-0. The second time Utah State got the ball it was on the Ute 13 yard line and we held them to a FG. They gutted it out and held them to a FG. That set the stage for the rest of the game in my book.

Kudos to the coaching staff for continuing to mix it up. They saw that USU was playing an overly-aggressive, over-persuing type of defense, and had some great play-action plays. The first TD by Nickel was great, but that play-action screen to him for his second TD on the backside was pure beauty. Everyone on USU's D was keyed on Anderson going over the right side, and Nickel slides left for the easy 6.

It is just plain fun to lock in and watch Kautai play defense. He is all over the field.

Kudos to Arceneaux. After missing his first 5 passes, badly I might add, he came back and made some beautiful reads. He mentally could've folded up shop at that point, but he showed a lot of character. There was only one bad pass that I can remember after that in which Bendinger was wide open on a 10-yard curl and Darnell threw it about 3 yards short. He made up for it later though. There was one play in which he hit the TE, who appeared to be his third option.

Props to the university on holding that carnival. It's a great idea. It brought people to the stadium to see a great game.

Matt Smith

The activities for the family were a big hit. As a personal aside my boy and his girlfriend got a FREE caricature drawing in the northwest end of RE stadium, thought that was good.

I also thought the band at half-time was awesome. They marched crisply, played great songs like 76 trombones, Respect, did the Script "U" to perfection. We found ourselves applauding the band big time.

We've been critical of marketing in the past (including me), but the new Ute fun zone in the south end was awesome, I'll give them an A for their effort.

Good to see R/E almost completely full and mostly with Utah fans, I'm guessing the max. on the USU contingent at about 2,000 or so. The previous argument of our small crowds didn't hold today, let's see how many show up in two weeks for Northeast Louisiana.

I hope Dart comes back quickly, that boy has had so much bad luck with injuries, it's like he's snake bitten. Darnell was inaccurate first half with his passing and didn't seem to scramble when it appeared appropriate to do so. I wonder how much he was in the game to start with. He had Nickel open once and through it over the outstretched arms of the 6'6" guy, I mean WAY high.

All in all a great night for football, exceeded expectations, and GO UTES.

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