ND Prediction and Utah-USU Thoughts: 9/8/2012

Purdue at Notre Dame
The gameday experience is off the chain here at Notre Dame.  And that was just Football Friday.  I'll be heading up to campus in the next hour or two to give my kids a look at gameday on campus.  Anyway, not much analysis here: Notre Dame has a great defense, minus a green secondary, and has very good offensive players.  Purdue (or PurDON'T if you believe a couple of the t-shirts I saw around campus) is going to be improved this year, I think.  I suspect the anticipation and excitement of the crowd to be through the roof tonight.  After struggling with this decision the entire off-season, I've decided to go all-in for ND 11 games this season.  Notre Dame 34, Purdue 14

Utah Trips Up
What an ugly game this was.  Utah State will take it.  Utah is stuck thinking about what might have been.  I suspect that gives Utah more than enough motivation to bring out the big guns next Saturday.  The main question becomes: will that help their offense?  It couldn't hurt.  Utah's D played well last night.  I heard rumblings that Chuckie Keeton proved he's the best QB in the state.  I saw Utah State with 4 drives that went for more than 20 yards in regulation.  Utah State also had 6 drives go through and out or fewer (a turnover before gaining a first down).  Chuckie Keeton rose to the big occasions, but it was far from a great OVERALL game for him.

But if Utah had Chuckie Keeton last night, they would have won handily.  Utah looked awful on offense.  USU certainly showed the key to stopping Utah's O: bring pressure from time to time and don't give up the big plays.  Utah didn't mount a drive all night.  They relied on a couple of big plays and that was pretty much it.  John White only had one rush over 10 yards and averaged only 3.6 yards per carry.  Other than two or three long pass plays, which were on great plays by WRs and not good (or smart) throws by the QB, Utah did absolutely nothing in the passing game.

I figured that Brian Johnson as OC would cost Utah a game or two this season, but I thought it would be USC and one other Pac 12 game.  BJ definitely got outcoached at Utah State.  It's not his fault K-Whit promoted him, but he's in over his head: he has no business coaching QBs at a BCS conference school, let alone being the OC.  With the pieces he has, his O should not have been as befuddled as they were last night.  He has a reasonably solid OL, RT excluded, if he can just get them in the right position to pound the football (i.e. run OUTSIDE from time-to-time).  Ute fans certainly wouldn't complain about the RB stable.  The WRs and TEs are extremely talented.  Wynn looks bad.  Hays looks average to almost decent: he's certainly better than he was last season.  Wilson looks like he has a ways to go but a lot of that I attribute to youth.  BJ's got to figure this out quick or Utah's season might be in serious trouble.  BYU is up next, then Arizona State, then USC.  Last night: his offense didn't look good enough to compete in any of those three games.  The D can keep them in those games, but ultimately it's going to come down to BJ figuring out a way to get points on the board.  Fast.  I've been beating this drum for a while now: BJ is holding Utah back from being a top 15 team.