Utes to play Navy in Poinettia Bowl
 

Navy is 8-4, but their wins are against all teams with losing records (except Air Force), and their losses include one to Delaware, a 1AA team. St

As always, with the Service Academies, you have to be prepared, because they will never let up. I watched the Army/Navy game yesterday, and thought Navy's offense looked good. Apparently they average around 350 ypg on the ground. Not much of a passing team, and their defense looked okay, but Army doesn't have much O.

Still, I am excited for the matchup. It should allow the Utes to get their 10th bowl win overall, and continue their winning streak in bowl wins to 6. I plan on being there.

It will be very exciting for the Utes to play a Navy team led by an interim coach.

Dec. 20 is a terrible day, though. Most people (including me) will still be working through that week before taking any holiday time off. Oh well, maybe I'll be able to watch it on TV instead of a 4"x4" window on my computer.

Navy has an interim coach? Sheesh might as well stay home. Better call up Missouri and tell them to do the same.

Most likely. I'm 90% certain Paul Johnson will leave. He's a hot commodity. But he's making 1.5 million at Navy, so there is good reason for him to stay.

Navy has the #1 rushing offense in the nation.

Utah has a terrible rushing defense.

However Navy lost to Delaware State. Utah probably wins this game by a couple of touchdowns.

Navy has no passing offense whatsoever. They are one dimensional and this Utah defense will destroy one dimensional teams.

I wouldn't say the Utes are a terrible rushing defense, I would say they are mediocre.

Utah will beat Navy soundly.

Teams have been able to run on Utah pretty much all year.

Oregon State 244 yards rushing against Utah.

Air Force 334 yards rushing against Utah.....and don't be fooled...AFA is essentially still a 1 dimensional offense.

UNLV 196 yards rushing against Utah

BYU 155 yards rushing against Utah

Utah State 136 yards rushing against Utah

Colorado State 135 yards rushing against Utah.

Your rush defense sucks.

A big part of that has been scheme. The scheme the Utes have been running this year has not been geared to stop the run game, it has been focused on stopping the pass.

Utah doesn't have to worry about the passing attack of Navy, and can key in on stopping the run. I'm not saying the Utes run defense is good, because it isn't good but it doesn't suck.

If the Utes rush defense sucked, the Utes would be giving up a ton of points and teams would be putting together long drives against Utah. Fact is that is not happening. Terrible rush defenses actually allow the other team to score points.

Scheme?

OSU had 2 new QB's and couldn't figure out what to do with them. Utah knew Oregon State was going to run the ball and couldn't stop them.

AFA only attempted 14 passes in their game against Utah compared to 63 rushes...Utah knew AFA was going to run a lot and couldn't stop them.

UNLV ran the ball at will on Utah with Frank Summers. It became apparent that Utah's scheme couldn't stop that. Are you honestly gonna tell me that Utah was scheming to stop UNLV's deadly passing attack?

Utah knew that BYU was gonna run Unga frequently....and they couldn't stop him.

Even Gartrell Johnson of CSU had a good game against Utah.

Bottom line...when a team decides to line up and smack Utah in the face and challenge their rushing D,,,,they will win the majority of the time because Utah's rushing defense is weak.

The reason why I'm giving Utah a 2 TD advantage over Navy is because KWhit does a good job of preppring his team for bowl games. If Navy rushes for 300+ yards on Utah are you still going to say it was because of scheme?