[CTcard]

Let's talk Utah end-of-game playcalling.

I very much appreciate that you have laid out in detail your argument and thoughts here. Far more interesting than merely stating "A is terrible" or "No, A is great".

I thought a few details might be of interest.

You can watch the whole fiasco of our final four plays at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-e61_FZWOo

1. Stanford lined up for their first and goal play at the 14 yard line with 2 minutes and 20 seconds left in the game. I think that a fair amount of time had already ticked off since the previous first down completion. That was plenty of time to run the offense but there was little sense of urgency to get moving to preserve options for later.

2. The first down marker was at the 4, so if Stanford had converted they would have likely had about 3 yards to go - certainly not 5.

3. The third down play was under center in a heavy-run formation and was a play-action pass. It was thrown to Hopkins (not Plantaric) which is probably not a meaningful difference to your argument.

I think the #1 target for the play was Hewitt rolling out to the right flat. He was covered. I think the #2 target (though this is much less clear in watching Hogan) was Cajuste who cut across the middle of the field and had his man picked by Murphy who was lined up as a TE. While the other safety (backer?) picked up Cajuste, he might have been open enough if Hogan waited a split second more.  Hopkins was the only other receiver out on a pattern (assuming Murphy wasn't a real option), he was kind of open though the pass was far off target to the wrong side.

That's the sort of play that would have benefited from a real blocking-catching capable TE, though the throw would have to be on target as well.

4. The fourth down play was a passing formation, shot gun, four-wide set where nobody picked up the blitzing MLB and we somehow ran too many receivers to the same spot on the field. Bit of a mess. The target was Cajuste.

5. Broader issues.

The defensive side of the ball.

In all three losses last year there were some significant let downs on defense as well as offense. Utah had 410 total yards and was moving the ball well until late third quarter. SC moved at will in the first half with three long scoring drives to start the game. MSU also had 400 yards of offense and their best passing game of the year against us. The good news is that in all cases the defense eventually adjusted and none of those teams had much fourth quarter offense against us.

I certainly would not say that the defense lost those games, but they were three of the poorer performances on the year.


"too many personnel groups featuring too many players whose standard was well off our best."

From what I can tell Shaw seems pretty committed to the various personnel packages. It's pretty easy to see the pluses and minuses there. They set up personnel advantages for particular plays, newer players get trained to do specific things well, and it keeps everybody involved and improving. On the other hand, they tend to tip off what you are likely to do and they may result in having less than your best personnel on the field.

The Hogan packages in 2012 worked pretty well, both by themselves and in preparing Hogan. The Lloyd packages in 2013 less so.

Presumably with more capable TEs we could run a bigger variety of stuff out of some of the heavy formations - it will be interesting to see whether that happens this year.

[CTcard]

Let's talk Utah end-of-game playcalling.

I very much appreciate that you have laid out in detail your argument and thoughts here. Far more interesting than merely stating "A is terrible" or "No, A is great".

I thought a few details might be of interest.

You can watch the whole fiasco of our final four plays at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-e61_FZWOo

1. Stanford lined up for their first and goal play at the 14 yard line with 2 minutes and 20 seconds left in the game. I think that a fair amount of time had already ticked off since the previous first down completion. That was plenty of time to run the offense but there was little sense of urgency to get moving to preserve options for later.

2. The first down marker was at the 4, so if Stanford had converted they would have likely had about 3 yards to go - certainly not 5.

3. The third down play was under center in a heavy-run formation and was a play-action pass. It was thrown to Hopkins (not Plantaric) which is probably not a meaningful difference to your argument.

I think the #1 target for the play was Hewitt rolling out to the right flat. He was covered. I think the #2 target (though this is much less clear in watching Hogan) was Cajuste who cut across the middle of the field and had his man picked by Murphy who was lined up as a TE. While the other safety (backer?) picked up Cajuste, he might have been open enough if Hogan waited a split second more.  Hopkins was the only other receiver out on a pattern (assuming Murphy wasn't a real option), he was kind of open though the pass was far off target to the wrong side.

That's the sort of play that would have benefited from a real blocking-catching capable TE, though the throw would have to be on target as well.

4. The fourth down play was a passing formation, shot gun, four-wide set where nobody picked up the blitzing MLB and we somehow ran too many receivers to the same spot on the field. Bit of a mess. The target was Cajuste.

5. Broader issues.

The defensive side of the ball.

In all three losses last year there were some significant let downs on defense as well as offense. Utah had 410 total yards and was moving the ball well until late third quarter. SC moved at will in the first half with three long scoring drives to start the game. MSU also had 400 yards of offense and their best passing game of the year against us. The good news is that in all cases the defense eventually adjusted and none of those teams had much fourth quarter offense against us.

I certainly would not say that the defense lost those games, but they were three of the poorer performances on the year.


"too many personnel groups featuring too many players whose standard was well off our best."

From what I can tell Shaw seems pretty committed to the various personnel packages. It's pretty easy to see the pluses and minuses there. They set up personnel advantages for particular plays, newer players get trained to do specific things well, and it keeps everybody involved and improving. On the other hand, they tend to tip off what you are likely to do and they may result in having less than your best personnel on the field.

The Hogan packages in 2012 worked pretty well, both by themselves and in preparing Hogan. The Lloyd packages in 2013 less so.

Presumably with more capable TEs we could run a bigger variety of stuff out of some of the heavy formations - it will be interesting to see whether that happens this year.