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Aug 23, 2019
1:54:30am
LiquidUte Walk-on
They don't just return a bunch of players, 4 guys that would have been drafted..

returned for another season. Zack Moss, Brad Anae, Leki Fotu, and Julian Blackmon. Leki is on at least two preseason All-America lists. Add to that likely Darren Paulo (LT), Jaylen Johnson (CB), and possibly John Penisini (DT) and Javelin Guidry (NB) and you could see 6-8 guys drafted from this Utah class. On top of that, 3rd year starter and senior Tyler Huntley returns (as you mentioned), 3/5 OL and almost the entire WR core and the best two TEs.

The RB stable is absolutely loaded behind ZM. Even if he doesn't play, I'm confident whomever plays in his place will still be effective.

We always knew that 2019 was going to be the year. Beyond the guys that would be upperclassmen and the surprise return of 4 draft eligable guys, the schedule (5 home conference games plus miss Stanford and UO in the north) is favorable plus Utah's byes are spaced nicely (5 games, bye, 4 games, bye, 3 games) and they have *0* back to back road games in 2019. Last year teams in the Pac 12 were horrendous in week two of back to back roadies and there were a lot of them throughout the league. USC is down, UW is reloading a bit only returning 1 starter on defense, and Cristobal hasn't proven that he can coach wins in spite of the talent there. Factor everything in and it feels like the stars are aligning this year.

The thing that scares me the most is the change in offense. There have been some comments out of Utah camp that the new offense is more complex with more decisions to be made by the QB and WR routes depending on the coverage shown. I'm of the opinion that Huntley played much better once they simplified the offense last year and you saw Utah go on that 4-game streak of 40+ points until he was injured. My concern is that it gets to complicated for Huntley and he hesitates. I think that is a real concern although the word out of camp is that he's been sharp (of course, they aren't going to say otherwise).

I think Utah should win the rivalry game on paper but I'm still nervous about it because it's just set up to be too perfect of an upset and weird things happen in this game. 

LiquidUte
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LiquidUte
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
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Dec 22, 2020
Total posts
515 (1 FO)