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SALT LAKE CITY -- When the Boston Red Sox started 2-10 this April, Red Sox Nation was up in arms. The fans couldn’t understand why such a talented team was losing so badly so much. Now, the Sox sit in first place with one of the best records in baseball. What crazed Boston fans forgot the first two weeks of the season was that there were legitimate reasons they were starting slow. Some of their biggest hitters were coming off significant injuries, others were getting used to new surroundings. Over time, everything got back to normal and Boston excelled.
With the Utah football team, it may be similar. The Utah offense was borderline terrible Thursday night. There are no excuses, but there are reasons. Legitimate ones. Here are seven, in no particular order:
1. Jordan Wynn is coming off an injury. The shoulder injury that Wynn is coming off of is a significant injury that takes time to recover from. When a quarterback has not faced a defense in a long time, he will look like Wynn looked Thursday night — lackluster, hesitant and nervous.
2. It was the first game of the season. First games of the season are always a little shaky. Kinks are still getting worked out. New people are getting used to new positions and to playing with each other for the first time. Utah has historically had shaky openers, this season apparently is no different.
3. Utah is breaking in a completely new offense. The spread offense is out, the West Coast offense is in. To go from the spread to the West Coast offense is not an easy transition to make for the players or the fans. Fans are used to seeing the ball go downfield with the spread. They will not see that as much early with the West Coast offense. It is also a new play caller to get used to in game situations for everyone involved in the offense.
4. Norm Chow is probably not going to show anything to USC. Going into the Montana State game, everyone expected a vanilla offense for the Utes so that they wouldn’t show too much to Lane Kiffin and USC. People in the stands were questioning the reverses that Chow ran early in the game for that very reason. Those same people are now calling into radio stations and complaining that the offense never threw it deep.
5. They got up big early and coasted. Any group of 19-year-olds who get ahead of a team like Montana State 24-0 early in the second quarter with a team like USC ahead of them will be looking ahead to next week. This will lead to coasting and a lack of killer instinct, which was obviously happening Thursday night with the Utes.
6. They were looking ahead to USC. The last two points lead into this one. The Utes were saying all the right things going into the Montana State game, but there’s simply no way 18- to 22-year-olds were not looking ahead to their first Pac-12 game at the Coliseum against USC.
7. Montana State took control of ball possession midway through the second quarter. One of the things Kyle Whittingham and a lot of other Ute coaches were saying after the game was that the Utes lost their offensive rhythm. The rhythm gets thrown off when you don’t get the ball as often as you would like. The Utes had the ball almost the entire first quarter, but suddenly when the mid-third quarter stats came out, the Bobcats were dominating the time of possession. Utah’s offense didn’t have the ball a whole lot during the second and third quarters. The Utes ended up winning the time of possession, thanks to the first quarter and running the clock out in the fourth quarter, but the offense started sputtering when it stopped getting the ball consistently.
Who knows, maybe Ute fans will have completely forgotten about the Montana State game like Red Sox fans have now forgotten about the first two weeks of the baseball season. Certainly there were no excuses for Boston’s 2-10 start, but there were reasons.
Let me make it perfectly clear again, these are reasons, NOT excuses for the Utes' poor offensive performance Thursday night. That said, Chow’s offense will still be new next week. USC’s offense will also be good enough to keep the ball for a long time if it wants to. Wynn will still be adjusting to his injury next week. You see, that’s the problem with reasons, they don’t go away easily.
Email: onlinesports@ksl.com
Trevor Amicone is the sports director at 88.1 Weber FM and host of the sports talk radio show, "Fully Loaded Sports with Trevor Amicone." To check out more blogs, go to trevorstoptens.com.
