Process Of Assimilation: Utah Utes Face Formidable Adaptations

To put it frankly, the Utah football program puts Charles Darwin to shame so far this season.

They knew coming into this season, that the encore performance of a season that draws unfair reviews, and will forever, would be a ridiculous and inequitable substance. 

2008 is a drug to Utes fans. It always will be. It'll be a fix that will forever relieve stresses and more importantly, serve as an irrecoverable requiem. 

Unscathed and untouchable are no longer terms synonymous. 

It's back to hard-working and athletic. It's a "process" as head coach Kyle Whittingham has continually clinged to during his tenure as bossman at Utah. 

This season's process is underway and with respectable resolve. The Utes are 3-1 thus far in 2009. 

This was to be a team that would be motoring on by the muscle of its defense and the hopeful consistency of its offense. 

Without question, it's a team built to win—in the current and in the future. 

Therein lies the problem: it may be a whole lot more future than current. 

Dave Schramm is in his first year as the offensive coordinator with the Utes. He came in and absorbed a rookie quarterback, an A-Z offensive line, a plethora of talent at the receiver position and a bull in the backfield.

That bull is now sayonara via a torn anterior crucial ligament. 

An entire offense built around one guy is something to pray for at times, but it also has its drawbacks and, in all probability, a set-up for a B-list horror movie outcome. 

When Matt Asiata bulldozed his way over the Louisville defense en route to a 24-yard touchdown, the senior popped up to celebrate with his on-rushing teammates. 

He came down awkwardly. That's all it took. He wasn't doing back-flips, nor was he showboating. 

A simple moment of euphoria gone terribly wrong.

Now, in that moment of all-too-distant atrocity, the Utes must press on without one of its team leaders, and one of its most talented (if not most) players now just four weeks into the season. 

It shows the level of trepidation college football programs hold for their players when it comes to the injury bug.

Utah went through an entire season and lost no one of considerable note. They ran the tables.

Anyone remember 2007? Yeah, no one else donning crimson red does either. 

Utah must now go back to the drawing board, in a sense.

They've lost their meal-ticket. Their Tonka Truck is in the shop for infinity. 

This isn't purely about Asiata, it's about the whole team becoming a cohesive unit, something we saw a whole ton of last year, and have yet to see much of this season.

Offensively, Utah will need to open the playbook up. They just have to. Terrance Cain has been consistently inconsistent at times.

The junior college transfer already has 906 yards through four games this season with six touchdown passes. He's also thrown a interception in three of the first four, to boot. 

Schramm and staff need to present Cain with more options offensively. Eddie Wide will take over for Asiata and will get help from redshirt freshman Sausan Shakerin and Shaky Smithson, who will see time at tailback and wideout. 

If this team wants to have success going forward, it will have to help the defense out. The offense will have to sustain drives, mix things up and become even more versatile than they've ever been.

Cain has a favorite target, albeit a validated one in David Reed. Reed is putting on quite a show in his senior season, having already accumulated 360 yards receiving and currently sports 13.8 yards per reception. 

After that, the drop-off is fairly significant. It's almost black-holeish. 

Jereme Brooks has his yards, but he's a YAC guy. There's John Peel, who has trouble holding onto the ball, then there was Asiata. 

There needs to be an explosion of hitting more than two guys. Think about it, Utah's a a spread-offense team. How do they go five-wide that many times in a game and leave the likes of Aiona Key and Smithson out in the cold?

Maybe Key is being used as block-first, catch-second receiver, but his athletic ability is uncanny and these questions have swamped the minds of Utah fans.

It was Cain, Reed and Asiata so far in 2009. The trio is now a duo—if you can call it that—and there is a need to expound in order to win games.

Utah is entering Mountain West Conference play. It's not San Jose State, Oregon or Louisville. These teams know the Utes. They know them pretty darn well, too. 

If Whittingham, Schramm and the rest of the staff think that riding a one-or-two trick pony throughout the rest of the season, they've most certainly got another thing coming. 

I don't question Whittingham's motives. Never have, never will. He's got the football brain of his dad Fred and former U head coaches Ron McBride and Urban Meyer and mostly Kyle, himself. 

The guy knows what he's doing. He's got the job for a reason, and that's why this will be one of the toughest seasons of his young head coaching career. 

How Utah comes out in two weeks in Fort Collins, Colo., against a up-and-coming Colorado State team that will be fully motivated after playing so sloppily in Provo will be a true first test.

The defense needs to evolve, too. The cornerbacks seem over-matched, the linebacker corps that was much-heralded has gone fairly silent in '09 and the big plays that are being given up are a cause for concern heading into MWC play. 

Talent-wise, they're there. They have it all, it's just a matter of evolving and going forward and winning football games, none of which are really easy, but Utah has the ability to adapt.

Darwin once said, "I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them."

So should the Utes.