The passing game became non existent — Utah ran 11 offensive plays in the fourth quarter against the Beavers with just one pass. That sort of lack of imagination cannot happen against a Colorado team fighting for its right to be in the Pac championship game. If the Utes jump out to an early lead like they did their past two games, they must put their foot on Colorado's throat and push down.
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Filed under: Sports Utah University of Utah. Reddit Pocket Email Linkedin. Moss scored on the play. Sign up for the newsletter Morning Edition Start your day with the top stories you missed while you were sleeping. Estimated read time: minutes. Few programs in the country have been more consistent than Utah in its ability to stop the run during Kyle Whittingham's tenure as head coach. It's why a majority of Utah's drafted players to the NFL over the years have been on the defensive side of the ball.
In the 10 years 11 seasons of the Pac era, Utah has led the conference in run defense in five seasons and nine seasons in the top three. If an opposing team wants to beat the Utes, it'll most likely have to get done through the air in a pass-heavy offensive scheme — over the years the pass defense has been the near antithesis to Utah's run defense. But every once in a while, just like Saturday when Oregon State rushed for yards en route to a win over the Utes, the traditionally stout run defense of Utah breaks down.
It's the third time this season an opponent has rushed for over yards against the Utes, and all have been losses on the road. The secret, it seems, is if a team can rush for over yards against the Utes, there's a high likelihood they'll get a win. That magic number of yards has been a telling indicator over the years.
In fact, in 11 seasons, Utah has allowed only 18 games where an opponent has rushed for over yards against its defense out of a possible games played since Utah joined the Pac Of those 18 games, all but four have been losses for the Utes. While not the only deciding factor in a win or loss for the Utes — they lose games many other ways, too, which have been documented over the years — it's a key indicator to how important the run defense has been for Utah's success.
Already this season, Utah has allowed 1, rushing yards and seven touchdowns for an average of If that numbers keeps up, Utah will be on pace to allow 1, It's not something Whittingham is used to seeing from his team, even if his player are younger and more inexperienced — like this season where the defense is made up of a majority of freshmen and sophomores.
We've had flashes during the course of the year, but not quite enough consistency. But, again, they'll get bigger and better as time goes on. And while there's no time to wait for the younger players to gain experience or get bigger suddenly to contend with teams that like to run — Utah's matchup against UCLA 8 p. As the top team in the South division, Utah will continue to contend for a division title in hopes of its third conference championships appearance in four seasons, but the season is far from where Utah expects to be.
That inconsistency and "soft" defense may lead to losses down the road, but Whittingham believes it will pay dividends in the coming years. You're going to take some lumps — there's just no way around it," Whittingham said. The Utes wanted to be a smash mouth team that used some spread-I formations and a running quarterback Troy Williams to help feature back Joe Williams find lanes.
Troy was second in carries with , and had five touchdowns. Joe was first, running times for 1, yards 6. QB Williams was unable to provide a dangerous adjunct to RB Williams, either as a runner or as a passer attacking vacated spaces outside of the box.
So joined the last several years of Whittingham football, featuring a solid defense paired with an ineffective offense. Taylor coached Washington QB Jake Browning from fifth grade on and headed up a private skills academy. The Eagles were coming off a season in which they missed the playoffs for the first time in four years.
Taylor came into an offense that was returning top receivers Kendrick Bourne and Cooper Kupp, but starting over with four new starters on the line and plugging in a former walk-on at QB, redshirt sophomore Gage Gubrud. Gubrud threw passes for 5, yards at 9. His top three receivers, Kupp, Bourne, and Shaq Hill, each went over 1, yards receiving, with Kupp at an astounding 1,
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