This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Aaron Roderick gets it.
He gets the skepticism, the cynicism, the doubt.
He knows everybody's watching him and his offense and its efficiency and proficiency and his play-calling and his creativity and his willingness — or Kyle Whittingham's — to turn his weapons loose as closely as they're watching any other part of Utah football. Closer. He knows the defense this season is going to be great, and he knows that everyone knows the defense will be great. He knows the kicking game, led by Tom Hackett and Andy Phillips, will be among the best in the Pac-12 and maybe in the country.
Those are givens.
His offense is not a given. And he knows that, too.
It is a mystery, an unsolved problem, a puzzle with pieces strewn about, some of them probably missing. That unfinished puzzle has been on the table for years now, never quite put together, not even in the best years, not since Urban Meyer's Fiesta Bowl team fully completed the picture. Last year's attempt, under the direction of now-departed OC Dave Christensen, was successful in getting the edges, the flat pieces connected, with limited turnovers and a running game that featured Devontae Booker as a 1,500-yard back. But the middle of the image — the passing game — stayed all bare tabletop.
It's Roderick's intention to fill that sucker in.
"We want to be a balanced offense — between run and pass," he says. "We don't put a number on it that we're going to be 50-50 or 60-40. Balance to me is that the defense has to respect your ability to use the whole field. So, we've got to use all of our position groups and we have to spread the field vertically and horizontally with our run game and with our passing game. If we can make the defense defend all of our offensive weapons, then we are a balanced team."
Roderick pauses, then stomps the accelerator, answering questions by asking them.
"Do you use the whole field, sideline to sideline, from line of scrimmage to deep? Do you use it all? Are all your skilled players on the field a threat to get the ball? That doesn't mean they all have to get equal touches, it just means that everyone has to be enough of a threat and involved enough in your scheme that the other team has to honor them. We might throw it out to the guy in the flat. We might throw it deep. We're going to hit crossing routes over the middle. We've got inside run game, outside run game. We've got the threat of the quarterback keeping it. If we can do that, we can really loosen things up for Devontae this year."
As co-coordinator alongside Jim Harding, who has final say on overall decisions, it is left to Roderick to call the plays, coach the quarterbacks, and craft his part of the details, as both Harding and Roderick are subject to the brooding presence of defensive-minded overlord Whittingham.
"We played a lot of conservative football last season," he says. "Our goal was to reduce the turnovers. We didn't want to give games away. It was, 'Let's get into the fourth quarter and give ourselves a chance.' This year, we want to continue to protect the ball, but have more of an ability to attack. We're never going to be a team that is just chucking and ducking, that's just not Coach Whittingham's personality. But we can definitely be more aggressive."
Roderick believes this offense this year will make a move toward something more than just a tattered bunch, an afterthought, a cluster of stepchildren Whittingham doesn't want to let screw things up. He says the quarterbacks will be able to flourish or, at least exist, with what the coordinators give them, which will be more than what they got a year ago. He seems unfazed by the fact that through the early parts of August camp, the big-dog defense has made the offense look like a bagful of Gravy Train.
In the Utes' first scrimmage, the quarterbacks looked awful, with the top three guys — Travis Wilson, Kendal Thompson and Chase Hansen — hitting 19 of 46 throws for under 200 yards, with three interceptions and one touchdown pass.
There were excuses made after that showing, with the excuse-makers underscoring that Booker didn't play in the exhibition and neither did the top receivers. All of that would be a lot more acceptable/consumable if the shadow of inefficient passing from a year ago, when the Utes finished last in passing in the Pac-12, wasn't still casting shade — or is it foreboding doom and gloom? — across the field. Thereafter, it was made known — and draw your own conclusion about this — that neither next Tuesday's scrimmage nor its offensive statistics would be made available to the media.
Wait, what?
No big thing, Roderick says: "Our defense is pretty good. With more practice time, the offense will be ready. We know we've got to be able to throw it. Coach Whitt mentioned to the team [Thursday] night, 'It's a lot easier to go from five wins to nine than it is to go from nine to 10 or 11.' The key to that is making the passing game more efficient. And that's what this camp is all about right now. We're not going to throw for 500 yards a game. That's not who we are. But if we get our completion percentage up five points a game, keep our turnovers down, our production's going to go way up."
Roderick also makes it clear that uncreative offensive football is boring football: "I love to mix in a reverse, I love to mix in a double pass, a flea-flicker. We will have some stuff for people."
Some stuff beyond handing the ball to Booker on first down and handing the ball to Booker on second and third and passing only out of desperation, or not at all, relying on the defense and Hackett to bail the offense out and gain field position.
It'll be different, Roderick says, this time around.
No, no, really.
"We're on schedule," he says. "We're going to be all right. We're going to be a good offense. We just gotta keep working."
GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.