dont know if you threw that out there for any specific reason or if it was just completely rando but now we get the chance to find out how prophetic you are. i'm going with 30-13 utah
I don't see an unmotivated Utah showing up. These guys show up to bowls ready to play. Would you believe me if I told you that Kyle Whittingham is 11-2 as the head coach in bowl games? That's the mark of a well prepared team. Whittingham is going to to have 3+ weeks to break down our offense and I promise you, it won't take him 3 days to do so. Our defense is a crap shoot because we SHOULD have MOST of our guys healthy. We haven't been healthy as team since LSU so that film is going to get broken down a thousand times. It's also going to be spliced up into snippets to serve as motivation to the Uses players. "Look here boys, they're giving playoff favorite LSU all they can handle. Better come ready to play!"
So from a film room standpoint--- I give the edge to Utah.
Offensively they are way out ahead of us. They average 10.7 yards per PASS-- not completion, mind you-- per pass attempt. We have the 120th ranked pass defense (or some such). Couple that with the fact that only one QB in all of college football has a better efficiency and completion % than the Utah QB, and we've already faced that guy--- Joe Burrow went 31/39 for 471 yards and 4 TDS. If the Utah Qb comes even close to that, we are toast.
The Utah QB has been sacked a few times this year. 19 to be exact. So we've got a shot at putting him on the ground. But if we lose contain, all bets are off. Sam on the other hand has been sacked 32 times, so there's that.
utah also has a 1350 yd rusher in Moss who is averaging a whopping 6.2 yards per carry average. If you look at Moss's splits, he starts off hot. Over 500 of his rushing yards come in the first quarter. He slowly Peters out as the game goes on with declining numbers in each quarter that follows. So if we can keep him from getting rolling early on, we've got a shot. If he gets rolling early, again, we are toast.
Their TE is their best receiver. I know, right? He's got 31 grabs all year so he leads in grabs and yards. Efficient. That's the only way to describe their passing game. Damn efficient. They don't appear to have any true burners at WR but they do have a big play kid named Thompson who averages 26.6 yards per grab. Problem is the little peckerhead has only 17 catches all year. He's 6-2 so he's not a small guy.
Their Kicker hasn't missed an extra point all year and is 9-12 with his FGs. So they've got that going for them.
On defense it's al about stopping two dudes. They've got a work horse at end named Anae who has 12.5 sacks. He will sack Sam. Write it down in stone. Dude has a motor and will get to Sam at least once. the other guy is their LB named Lloyd. Dude is speed freak. He is 6'3 and 240 and can run like a jack rabbit. He's got 85 tackles and 5.5 sacks. Dude stuck a fork in an INT earlier in the year and housed it 64 yards later. Dude's got skates.
The few games of theirs I actually saw this year showed me that they believe in gang tackling. Party at the pile. First dude stands you up and the rest pile on. They've forced 10 funble this year and recovered 8. So if your dumb ass drops the rock, there's an 80% chance that they crumb snatch it.
All I got for now. But it ain't looking great for the good guys.
