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Five Things to Watch For: Utah

Before getting into arguably the biggest game of the season so far, we must do as we always do -- check the scorecards!

1) [Contain] Sparky - Only premiered late, but nearly unstoppable when it did. Instead, Wilkins did a lot of the most damaging running [not check]

2) Run the ball - Stats sheet says we ran a little. Not true with Muhammad out, and definitely not true in the second half. [not really check]

3) Pass threats - contained ASU's group while Darius Allensworth was in the game. Once it was Drayden and Nwochka and Anderson, things fell off hard. [half check

]4) Special teams - no returns of value and consistently pinned inside own 25 [definitely not check]

5) No let downs - they came out ready to play and only faded due to a combination of lacking depth, weather, and mental errors. I didn't feel like it was an issue of lacking preparedness. [check]

1.5 out of 5, and they lost some of those categories by a rather large margin -- number four in particular accounts for most of the score difference, actually. Alas. Onto Utah, and the five things to watch this week.

Let's be honest -- Kyle Whittingham runs one of the toughest, most physical squads in the conference, right up there with that school and that other shade of red we despise so thoroughly. But that doesn't mean this game is unwinnable by any stretch. Utah's strengths, on paper (defensive line play, grind it out rushing attack) would appear to cancel out our strengths (offense) and be a bad fit for our weaknesses (rushing D), but I believe that the gap between these units has narrowed quite a bit, and the advanced statistics do bear it out.

If Cal can manage even an okay offensive effort out there, Utah may not have the tools to catch up, ranking as a very middle of the road team offensively (they rank 82nd in the country in explosiveness). Even with our struggles on that side on defense, it tends not to be as big of an issue if the other team's offensive unit isn't a huge threat.

A game like we hope the Bears usually have -- a couple stops, combined with no errors on offense -- could end up being enough, due to the Utah general lack of explosiveness.

Specific factors:

1) Cal WRs vs Utah DBs

- Cal loves explosive plays, deep shots, and generating RAC off missed tackles on outside screens or in space generally. Utah is 21st in the country at allowing explosive plays on IsoPPP stat, which (as best as I can explain it -- correct me in the comments) basically measures how explosive your successful plays are on offense. For opponents that face the Utah defense, this number is very low.

In essence, they're set up to stop the one thing we really like to do, with big, physical defensive backs that gave us fits last year anyway. Four of those guys are returning, with the only change being strong safety Chase Hansen.

Something's got to give, especially if Cal can't...

2) RUN THE DANG BALL

I said it a few weeks ago, but we keep getting more evidence that we really might not be able to run the ball at all -- at least not to the degree what we'd like. Once again, this will be crucial for balance, roster management, and game flow. They may not run it efficiently again, but anything better than what they got against ASU and being able to keep the Utah defense generally honest would be wonders.

One thing worth watching is the health of All-Pac 12 first team defensive tackle Lowell Lotulelei, who sounds -- at the time of writing -- that he won't play. Instead, the Utes will be led in the middle by Pasoni Tasini, Filipo Mokofisi, which might make the offensive line's job at least a little easier. A little.

3) Timothy BLEEPING Patrick

Know this one name, Cal fans, and know it well. This is Utah's best pass catcher, with 5 TDs and 385 yards on the season, drawing 28.6% of targets from Troy Williams. Part of the reason why Cal's defense may be able to survive this matchup is due to a largely pedestrian passing attack outside of Patrick, but that can turn quickly if Darius Allensworth does not play. Besides, we have some experience giving up long TDs to the other Utah receivers...

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4) Turnovers

Thus far, Utah has benefited from some serious turnover luck -- they managed to pull out a win against BYU despite committing SIX turnovers, a number that would assuredly doom us, and generated a statistically significant amount of their own. Because their offense isn't particularly productive outside of the second half of the USC game, getting extra possessions is crucial for them, and conversely, preventing those same possessions is crucial for us. On top of this,

Troy Williams has thrown five interceptions in roughly half the attempts of Davis Webb, and their backs have all fumbled so far this year...so there's an opportunity here.

5) Pass protection

Even after factoring out a 10 sack outlier game against San Jose State earlier this year, Utah's pass rush is likely to give us some fits, so watching how Hunter Dimick and Pita Taumoepenu face off against Aaron Cochran and Steven Moore is crucial, because ASU really picked up the pressure in the second half with just their base four and the occasional Koron Crump.

Teams know now that our tackle play can get exposed, if they didn't already.

Gotta protect. Webb does best against the blitz, but not when it's base pressure alone.

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