Stat Of The Week: Utah

This week's Stat of the Week was a little difficult for us.  Not because we coudn't find one, but because there were too many.  What we look for in the Stat of the Week is the key to victory for us, something in the statistics that will prove to be a deciding factor in the game … a stat that we can watch throughout the game to gauge how our team is doing.

The Stat of the Week for our first game at Stanford was offensive production.  It was anemic last year against the worst defense and team in the country, and we thought this year it had to be outstanding for us to win.  We were right … our offensive production went through the roof, again against the patsy of the nation in defense.  Had it not been for that excessive production, however, Stanford could have mounted a comeback, having been down by only 14 in the 4th Qtr.  We absolutely needed that offensive outburst to win because our defense was not shutting Stanford down. 

The Stat of the Week for last week's BYU game was the inexperience of BYU, particularly the offense. We predicted a +3 turnover margin due to that inexperience.  What happened?  3 highly significant turnovers for BYU and 11 back breaking penalties, all indicators of the inexperience and youth we spoke of.  BYU would have won the game were it not for those key stats, the turnovers and penalties, that we focused on in our Stat of the Week.

This week there are far too many reasons why we will blow Utah out.  We predict a victory along the lines of 41-7, and we feel we are being conservative.  As we mentioned yesterday, Utah's stats on both sides of the ball are among the worst in the country.  They have lost all their key players to injury, leaving them with tons of inexperience and youth in key offensive positions, including QB, RB, WR and the OL.  They have the kind of inexperience, youth and lack of depth, that will lead to many turnovers and penalties, just like BYU, and big plays for our offense, just like Stanford.  This is a high school team. 

So, our Stat of the Week is the simply the Vegas Line, which currently hovers around Utah +14.  We do not want people to gamble, do not encourage it or support it, and this is not an invitation to gamble.  We point out the spread simply to show that the spread is the key Stat of the Week … if the game is anywhere near this close it would be a bad sign for our team going forward, not to mention within the game itself.  But we do not expect anything close to that spread, it will be a blow out, and the Dorrellistas will come out in full force. Go Bruins!!

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