Week 4 Weekend Preview: Blake Anderson At A Crossroads, Must Dominates For Utah & BYU

September 22, 2022 Eric Jensen CFB, Nfl 0

It’s time for the Week 4 weekend preview. In the Week 4 Weekend Preview, Eric Jensen will look across the state of Utah in college football and across the nation in the NFL to highlight the upcoming week in the world of football. Let the Week 4 Weekend Preview begin!Β 

USU

The last time they hit the field, things could not have gone much worse for Blake Anderson’s team. Weber State dominated them in almost every meaningful way on the field.

Things seemed to have steadied in Logan though, practice reports have been good and confidence seems to be high going into a matchup with UNLV. So what exactly does UNLV do really well? They run the ball, Aidan Robbins is probably the best pure runner in the Mountain West Conference. Last week against North Texas he toted the ball 29 times and put up 227 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Marcus Arroyo has put together a fantastic scheme for a UNLV program now on the come up. Utah State will need to focus heavily on taking away the ground game. Doug Brumfield provides a great arm at QB for UNLV but their passing game flourishes the most when using play-action passing. This is a much-improved team from the one that blew a double-digit lead against the Aggies last year in Las Vegas.

Blake Anderson Facing Adversity

In his tenure at Utah State, this is the first time Blake Anderson has faced program adversity. For the most part the program has been a winner but over the last two weeks has run into adversity. How Utah State responds is now the big question, the schedule does not get any easier for the Aggies who take on in-state Rival BYU next week and in two weeks face what has looked to be a very dangerous Air Force team.

A lot of how this team does will be based heavily on whether Logan Bonner improves or not, he’s clearly playing through some type of injury and it has seemed to affect his play through two weeks. Another layer of adversity for Bonner is that he lost offensive weapon Kyle Vanleeuwen to the year to a knee injury. This will force Alabama transfer Xavier Williams to step in, something we haven’t seen yet this season.

The season is not over for the Aggies but the next four weeks of the schedule are unforgiving. The team needs to have at least a 2-2 split to feel like they’re in the race for the division and probably go 3-1 if they hope to regain contender status.

UNLV is a very good measuring stick for where this program is at as a whole right now.

One thing to keep an eye on, how long is Logan Bonner’s leash? The tune has changed over two weeks. It seems like the runway is short.

Utah

The Utes play a program in turmoil this week. Herm Edwards probably didn’t get fired on the field (though I get why that’s the narrative, just very funny) but probably got the call very soon after he walked off of it. It’s now been revealed that the program was full of leaks and snakes and that information on the team was easy to come by.

This Arizona State team also got absolutely gashed by Eastern Michigan on the ground and through a little tape dawging, have a problem defending runs to the outside. Something that you would have to believe Micah Bernard and Jaylon Glover can be used to expose. Look for Utah to try and stretch the field horizontally against a team that played with solid run lane discipline against Oklahoma State earlier in the year.

The Utes have started slowly as of late, a real focus for Kyle Whittingham and the staff throughout the week. Look for run-heavy opening drives that grind away the clock. Arizona State’s linebackers also struggle in coverage, why hello there Brant Kuithe and Dalton Kincaid.

The Utes should be able to dominate this game. The expectation should be a 30-point win. Excuses no longer exist for this team, they must start fast, they must eliminate minor mistakes and begin getting ready for an absolutely brutal conference slog ahead.

BYU

To say the game against Oregon was ugly would be an understatement. BYU got outclassed on both sides of the ball at the line of scrimmage and constantly seemed to miss tackles.

Forget about weekend previews of past, the week 4-weekend preview says this, time to get back to basics. Because if you don’t get back to basics, if you don’t focus on fundamentals, you can absolutely lose to a team like Wyoming.

Losing to Wyoming is not an acceptable outcome for where BYU is at as a program right now. Again, the thing I will be watching the most closely this week is the pass rush. The Cougars scored a failing 51 points in there pass rush grade on PFF last week and haven’t hit 70 once this season.

Things need to get better and they need to get better fast if BYU hopes to be ready against physically dominating teams like Notre Dame and Arkansas later this year.

This matchup is about pride, you are BYU, a nationally relevant program with hopes of competing in the Big-12 next year. You need to blow the Cowboys out of the water. This game should not be close. If it is, BYU has major questions heading into the rest of the season and a grudge match with hated in-state foe Utah State.

NFL

Briefly, in two sentences or less, some thoughts on the upcoming NFL weekend.

Raiders-Titans: Vegas hates the Titans, they’re a two point underdog at home. Don’t blame the public to be honest with you, Tennessee has looked like a disorganized mess offensively through two weeks. Defensively, this team has significant injuries at all three levels, losing Harold Landry on the eve of the season was a killer.

Chiefs-Colts: Wrote on Wednesday, Colts might just be talent poor man. This is a must-win for Indianapolis but the Chiefs are looking to make a statement here. The offense had some questions last week, I think they’re trying to leave no doubt that they belong in the AFC hierarchy conversation with the Bills.

Lions-Vikings: This Lions team is getting disrespected being a six-point underdog to the Vikings. I for one don’t believe the Vikings are a real team. Seriously, Kirk Cousins got exposed for the 10,000th time on Monday Night Football. Give up, move on, this ain’t it. Lions have an explosive offense and we are about to see that again this week.

Packers-Buccaneers: The Packers have no wide outs, really everyone but Romeo Doubs is hurt. They are also a run first offense facing one of the best rushing defenses in the league in the Bucs. This could be the get-right game for Brady, Packers could be in massive trouble here.

Niners-Broncos: Probably no Jerry Jeudy, probably no KJ Hamler. The passing offense has been an embarrassment so far, time to try the run game. The Niners have a top ten rush defense per PFF, feels like the Broncos are doomed here. Now granted, I feel this way almost every week, but here it feels very dire. If the Broncos don’t get wildly outcoached in this game it will be a major shock. Broncos need a win bad to remain competitive in the AFC West.