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OFFICIAL Utah State Game Thread

I’m just going off of the preseason SP rankings. Michigan is the only team not in the bottom 40 that they play.

Tulane and Hawaii both had good openers though and may be tougher challenges than projected.
 
We should roll Rice. We should score quite a few points and Rice doesn't have the offense to keep up with us. If we come to play, we win easily.
 
Army plays VMI, UMass, and Morgan State. Is that 3 FCS games?

ETA: I see umass is an independent FBS team. Yikes.
 
Even last year when Army was ranked they lost to Duke by 20, beat Miami of Ohio in OT and beat bad a bad Navy team in a low scoring game. The style of play in the Rice game limited the number of plays and possessions which helped keep the score close.

We play lots of plays.
 
Can't decide whether I'm going to the UNC game or not I may get banned from Wake games for life. Hole fans are already crowning themselves back and world beaters for that win over a shitty South Carolina team and calling us and Utah st ass
 
More food for thought on Rice. Their offensive line did a really good job of setting up the run, which Rice attempted frequently. They averaged six yards a run and had 181 yards on the ground - 54 came on one run for their only touchdown.

Nine total offensive possessions with two three and outs plus another possession where they got the ball inside the Army 20 after Army failed to convert a fourth and 1 (Rice missed the field goal). Possessions went: punt, missed field goal (26 yards), punt, touchdown (4 plays, 75 yards - aforementioned 54 yard run), missed field goal (44 yards), punt, punt, punt, turnover on downs.

The majority of their runs went straight up the middle from a base formation. The QB spent a lot of time under center with a back behind him and tight ends brought in for extra protection. I felt like they telegraphed their runs pretty frequently with tight sets and they did not use play actions very frequently. When the QB, Green, was forced out of the pocket by the defense he was both frantic and inaccurate. For the game he went 7-14 for 62 yards good enough for a 4.9 QBR. Over half of his passing yards came on about an 8 yard completed pass turned into a 35 yard gain with YAC. Their QB looked absolutely awful overall.

Their kicking game sucked, neither missed field goal was particularly close but I was impressed by their punter who averaged 44 yards a punt and did a good job making sure Army wasn't going to return anything.

All-in-all I thought Rice looked similar to how they looked last year with a slightly better defense. I see the game going roughly how it did a year ago where Wake jumps on them early and Rice doesn't have any answers for the passing game. This will be a big game for the front seven as any pressure we dial up is going to be problematic for their young QB. If we can shut down the run early and force them into a heavier pass game the Owls are in serious trouble.

Early pick is 41-13 Wake.
 
Every agrees the Rice line of 19 is too big I guess they figure we will score when we get inside the five and that their defense is not as good as Utah State. We all agree this is a 31-20 kind of game and the line is too big.
 
atldeac23 said:
I was disappointed with both of our lines. Offensively we weren't getting much push, and the RPO stuff wasn't working. I'm confident though that Newman/Carney will improve in that regard, though.
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You do realize we were playing against a very experienced 7 man Utah St D-line that were seniors don't you and we had only 2 guys back from last year?
 
Wake did win by 30+ last year. That was in Winston and Rice is better since then, but so is Wake.
 
nvadeac said:
I watched Rice at Army yesterday and Rice is very good. Army struggled all day against their defense and scored with 2 minutes left to win 14-7. Rice will not be as easy an opponent as last year. I'd say it will be much closer than that line based on what I saw.
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Yes you’re right - none of us gamble but we know that we are not going to travel that far and win by 18 points. The line is ridiculous. Rice is so much better than last year we all know it’s a 31-20 kind of game
 
After USU beat on their heads pretty good Friday I strongly suspect our guys will be ready to play hard and smart to win their first away game. The Deacs will not overlook Rice. Besides the Deacs know they are in the second toughest NCAA division so they’ve got to win all the non-conference games to keep the ball rolling toward bowl eligibility. Once division play starts it becomes exponentially more difficult to win any game.
 
That's a good take. I'll be rooting hard for them against LSU.
 
I'm watching the condensed game right now. The most telling part of the reviewed toe tap USU TD is WR Mariner's reaction. When he sat up and saw the official's call, he just slapped his knee in frustration. He didn't spring up and point to where his foot landed in bounds. He didn't protest the call at all. He didn't act like a guy who got his toe down.

By the way, the condensed game is weird. I'm about 20 out of 30 minutes in and they've shown several punts and none of the 4th down stops.
 
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PhDeac said:
I'm watching the condensed game right now. The most telling part of the reviewed toe tap USU TD is WR Mariner's reaction. When he sat up and saw the official's call, he just slapped his knee in frustration. He didn't spring up and point to where his foot landed in bounds. He didn't protest the call at all. He didn't act like a guy who got his toe down.

By the way, the condensed game is weird. I'm about 20 out of 30 minutes in and they've shown several punts and none of the 4th down stops.
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My guess is our condensed game is weirder than most. Between us and USU, we ran almost twice as many plays as in a normal game, so they probably had to cut way more plays out of our game than the other ACC games. Just a guess. Clawson also said we had like 17 3 or 4th and 1 plays, and in a normal season, you might have 40 or so - this was the one of the reasons he gave that our goal line offense was not great in the late 3rd and 4th quarter. USU had seen every play we have and we didn't change the cadence on the snap so they were anticipating the snap fantastically ...
 
They included several fair caught punts and excluded key 4th and short plays. There’s no good reason for that.

By the way, Mariner is a heck of a WR. He had 118 yards on some tough catches. He only had 208 yards at Utah last season.
 
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