I have given a voice to an Arizona and UCLA voice on this blog about why they thing that on September 1st and September 8th their respective teams will walk away with a W. Now it's my turn:
Arizona:
5. Arizona's offensive line is young and inexperienced. BYU fans have endured several seasons of the implementation of wide splits. Does anyone remember how many drives were killed in Tucson last year because of miscommunication along the line? The splits are not only difficult to learn and implement well, but you are suddenly noticeably further from the next guy in the line and it is very hard to communicate, especially when you are...
4. At BYU. Home field advantage is huge when you are implementing a new offensive scheme because the crowd is quiet when you are trying to avoid false starts. If LES is rocking and sold out (which it will be), Arizona will have a hard time mounting sustained drives.
3. BYU defense vs Arizona offense will not be as interesting as BYU offense vs Arizona defense, in a good way. BYU lost important players, but the scheme and many of the components are now entering their 3rd year together. The new spread offense that Arizona is implementing is based on Texas Tech and BYU. In other words, the defense is very used to seeing it. If Arizona cannot mount long drives against Bronco's bend-but-not-break defense, they will not see the end zone very often.
2. BYU will be more effective on the ground this season and Arizona should not see much improvement. Curtis Brown, who I am a huge fan of, just was not effective against Arizona. Fui Vakapuna and Manase Tonga are amazing combinations of speed and power and had decent success in limited carries in Tucson last year. I expect big things from both of them this time around. Arizona lost their physical freak, Chris Henry, to the NFL. Before his 54 yard burst, he ran 12 times for 9 yards total.
1. Revenge. What motivation does Arizona have to win? Not much, its just a mid-major before the conference play begins. What motivation does BYU have? Oh, just the team that beat them on a last second field goal that essentially kept them out of the BCS, a chance to win at home against a BCS team. I think Bronco and Anae have finally found the formula to get ready in a down period for a game, like they did against Oregon.
My 3 Cents: UCLA rebuttal coming up tomorrow. Sign up on the right-hand task bar to receive My 3 Cents updates in your email!
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4 comments:
Revenge is a strong motivator and everything else you said sounds logical, but I think we really need to have a strong ground game in light of Max Hall's lack of snaps in real games in the past x years.
Good analysis and although it might be picky I suggest doing a Spell Check prior to posting your comments
Walter, if you want to be picky [comma] i suggest you first take a lesson in punctuation. a-hole.
Walter, thanks. I sometimes miss things in the spellcheck because there are so many strange names on BYU teams. I fixed Tucson.
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