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SALT LAKE CITY - Going into the Pac-12 Conference this season, there were so many questions facing the University of Utah football team: Was depth going to be an issue with a more rigorous schedule? How would the Utes' starters and front line match up against the likes of USC and other Pac-12 powerhouses? Were the Utes big enough, strong enough, fast enough?
With the Utes’ first full season in the Pac-12 now in the rearview mirror, we can look back and answer those questions. It’s clear that the Utes’ recruiting has taken a step up with the move to the BCS conference.
Related:
Utah Football Forecast: Oblivious resilience helped Utes save 2011 season, bowl game
Trevor Amicone takes a step back and looks at the Utes' 2011 season through the eyes of Saturday's Sun Bowl.Utah’s athletes are beginning to look more and more like Pac-12-caliber football players, and recruiting trends are beginning to indicate a continuation of that. BYU fans can attest to this. As much as Cougar nation would like to blame the turnovers in this year’s rivalry game, rational BYU fans have to concede that the Ute athletes were bigger, faster and better.
That said, matching up with the old guard from the Mountain West Conference and matching up with the Pac-12 is a whole different story. So the grading scale will be based on the Utes’ position strengths in regard to the Pac-12 rather than the competition from previous years in the MWC.
For example, the Ute receivers might rank as the No. 1 or 2 in the old Mountain West (TCU and BYU included). That would grade them out as an A/A-. Not in the Pac-12.
So without further adieu, let’s look at the Utes’ positional grades for their first season in the Pac-12 Conference.
QUARTERBACKS: Very simply, a team cannot have the lack of depth that the Utes had in 2011 at this position and compete in the Pac-12. Of the 12 teams in the conference, five of them had starting quarterbacks spend significant time on the bench due to injury. In big-time college football, quarterbacks get hit and they get hurt.
Everyone and their grandma knew that if Jordan Wynn got hurt, the Utes were in trouble. Considering that it happened in the fourth game of the season, the 8-5 finish is pretty outstanding, but the truth remains, Jon Hays is not a Div. I quarterback. Ute fans should worship him for what he did for them this year, but he is not good enough to play in major college football, never mind the Pac-12.
| Utah Team Schedule (8-5) | |||
 | W 27-10 | ||
 | L 14-23 | ||
 @ Brigham Young Cougars (10-3) | W 54-10 | ||
 Washington Huskies (7-6) | L 14-31 | ||
 Arizona State Sun Devils (6-7) | L 14-35 | ||
 @ Pittsburgh Panthers (6-6) | W 26-14 | ||
 | L 10-34 | ||
 Oregon State Beavers (3-9) | W 27-8 | ||
 @ Arizona Wildcats (4-8) | W 34-21 | ||
 UCLA Bruins (6-8) | W 31-6 | ||
 | W 30-27 | ||
 Colorado Buffaloes (3-10) | L 14-17 | ||
 | W 30-27 | ||
The quarterback position was the single-biggest hole for the 2011 Utes. Filling that hole next season could make a behemoth difference. GRADE: D.
RUNNING BACKS: One can’t get an A+ in school, but to be honest, if we were grading this position on a scale of 1-10, the backs would get a 100. The reason? John White IV. Juan Blanco Cuatro. JWIV. Whatever you want to call him, he was the Utes’ offense in 2011.
If he hadn’t been playing the conference of running backs (usually the conference of quarterbacks), he would have been first-team all-conference. Seriously, think about it: Name one running back in the SEC other than Trent Richardson. Name one running back in the Big 10 other than Montee Ball. Name one at all in the Big 12. White may have been first-team in all those conferences.
It's is a travesty White was second-team instead of first. He was 11th in the nation in rushing yards per game and ninth in total rushing yards, ranking ahead of Washington running back Chris Polk in both categories (Polk-16th, 11th respectively).
White’s production is made all the more impressive by the fact that Utah couldn’t pass the ball. Every team the Utes played loaded the box, daring them to throw it. Utah looked at the eight/nine defenders in the box, laughed at it, and successfully ran it anyway. GRADE: A+
WIDE RECEIVERS & TIGHT ENDS: This group is hard to grade because the pass offense was so bad and it was never the fault of the receivers. This may be the position with the most depth for the Utes, and they have a lot coming back for 2012.The talent is there with the likes of DeVonte Christopher, Dres Anderson, and Luke Matthews. The size, however, is not. Every team in the Pac-12 has one tall receiver who can be counted on to go up and get a jump ball when needed. The Utes do not, but some are on the way. Who are they? That will be covered in the fifth part of our series when we look at the program’s future.
The tight ends were a big part of the Ute offense. Without Dallin Rogers, Jake Murphy (before season-ending injuries to both), Kendrick Moeai and even David Rolf, the pass offense would have been even more abysmal. GRADE: B
OFFENSIVE LINE: This unit was one of the most underrated on the whole team. Early in the season, the pass blocking was suspect. A large part of that was getting used to new blocking schemes with the new offense and the new running backs to coordinate pass protections with.
The run blocking, however, was outstanding. You could see it in the Colorado game when White got injured. Tauni Vakapuna stepped right in and ran for 77 yards. Certainly, the offensive line deserves much of the credit for White breaking Utah’s single-season rushing record. GRADE: B
OVERALL OFFENSE: With the O-line, receivers, and running backs all receiving stellar grades, this grade tells us just how important the quarterback position is. This is partly why a healthy Jordan Wynn or a solid Chase Hansen or Travis Wilson will make such a humongous difference in 2012.
Utah had the worst pass offense in the Pac-12 and it wasn’t even close. The completely dysfunctional UCLA offense threw for more yards — by more than 500. Utah’s total offense was dead last in the conference by almost 500 total yards.
Imagine how bad it could have been with even just a mediocre run game. It wouldn’t be too hard, just look at the first three quarters of the Sun Bowl when the Utes all but abandoned the run. GRADE: C-
CORNERBACKS & SAFETIES: They were the weak spot on the defense, but that isn’t saying much seeing as how the Utes arguably had the best defense in the Pac-12. Utah was fourth in the Pac-12 in passing defense, giving up 237.5 passing yards per game. That’s not bad for the Pac-12, but the secondary was prone to giving up the big play.When the Utes played the pass-heavy offenses like Arizona and Washington State, the secondary showed up to play, which saves them here. Also, Brian Blechen is the best player the Utes have had in their secondary since Eric Weddle, and he’s only a sophomore. Just wait, it gets better. The other safety, Eric Rowe, was named a freshman All-American by Yahoo! Sports and Scout.com. Ute fans should salivate over the next two years with Blechen and Rowe manning the defensive secondary. GRADE: B
LINEBACKERS: The linebackers were a huge part of the best run defense in the conference. Everywhere the Utes went there was talk about their front seven. The run-stopping ability of the Utah front seven has been a staple of Kyle Whittingham's defenses since he arrived in Salt Lake City.
The Utes will lose three of key linebackers to graduation: Matt Martinez, J.J. Williams and Chaz Walker. How that huge hole will probably be filled in Part 5 of our Utah Football Forecast series. GRADE: A-
DEFENSIVE LINE: The Utes’ defensive line, anchored by junior Star Lotulelei, was maybe the best D-line this side of Alabama and LSU. The Ute run defense was seventh in the nation before the Georgia Tech triple-option anomaly of a game, giving up only 98 yards on the ground per game.
The D-line was also 25th in the nation in sacks with 29. A few more would have given them an A+. High standards here. Only White gets an A+. GRADE: A
SPECIAL TEAMS: This group is also hard to get a read on, especially junior place kicker Coleman Peterson. The Sandy, Utah, native as streaky as you could possibly be as a place kicker. In the span of one week, Peterson went from hero to goat.
He won the game for the Utes in Pullman, Wash., against Washington State with a the game-winning field goal in overtime. Peterson won Pac-12 special teams player of the week honors for his efforts in that game. One week later, he probably cost the Utes an appearance in the Pac-12 Championship game by missing three field goals, including a 26-yarder and the potential game-tying field goal as time expired.
The Colorado performance seems to be atypical for Peterson. He was 18 of 25 on the season and only missed one extra point. That would be good enough for a C, but the efforts of junior punter Sean Sellwood adds a plus to the special teams grade. Sellwood was 26th in the nation in punting yardage, averaging over 43 yards per punt. Some of those punts were huge in important field position battles during the course of the season.
The Utes also get points for being seventh in the nation in kickoff-return coverage and 13th in the nation in punt-return coverage, allowing no punt return touchdowns and only one kickoff return for a touchdown. GRADE: C+
COACHING: Simply put, Whittingham is one of the best coaches in the nation. He may get more out of his players than any coach in college football. This year may have been one of his best coaching years yet. He had a team who was easily on the verge of giving up on the season before he called a meeting with his seniors.Whatever was said in that meeting after the Cal game worked. It’s hard to give offensive coordinator Norm Chow blame for the poor offensive output, and it was Chow who brought in Hays at the last minute to eventually salvage season. Defensive coordinator Kalani Sitake didn’t really do anything wrong all season, so no knock there.
The minus comes from two things: one small, one major. The first was the avoidable panic at the end of the USC game to force the rushed field goal that was ultimately blocked. It may have been blocked anyway, but the game management is hard to look over. The path the season might have taken if the Utes made that field goal and ultimately won that game would have been so different than the path they eventually took. The major minus: not having the team ready to play against Colorado at home with a chance to go to the Pac-12 title game. GRADE: A-
OVERALL TEAM: In a year that was ultimately a rebuilding year, fans really couldn’t expect anything better from a team that loses its quarterback and steps into a conference that ends the season with three teams in the nation’s top five.
The Colorado loss was unacceptable, as was the performance at Cal. Sure, Cal might have been the better team, but the flat performance was unacceptable. It’s hard, however, to rank a Utah team below a B- when it beat arch rival BYU, 54-10. Ute fans also can’t ask for much more than a shot to play for the Pac-12 title and the 2011 Utes gave it to them. GRADE: B-
Coming Up Wednesday,Jan. 4, we take one last comprehensive look at the Utes’ 2011 by naming the team’s MVP, Most Memorable Moment, Biggest Play and more.
Trevor Amicone is the sports director at 88.1 Weber FM "Ogden's Radio Station" and host of the sports talk radio show, "Fully Loaded Sports with Trevor Amicone." Follow his very entertaining Twitter feed at @TrevorAmicone.
