Playing on the road for the first time this season, Utah walked out of Fresno State with a 3-0 record, beating the Bulldogs 45-24 on Saturday night. Despite the large margin of victory, it was not the cleanest. Head coach Kyle Whittingham thinks his team should have played a better all-around game.
“We didn’t finish the game like we wanted to,” Whittingham said. “We got sloppy at the end, which is unfortunate because we put together a pretty good game plan.”
In the fourth quarter, quarterback Kendal Thompson committed his second turnover of the game and lost a fumble, which the Fresno State offense turned into a touchdown, making the score 24-10. But the Utes appeared to deflate any chance of hope for the Bulldogs.
Return man Cory Butler-Byrd returned the ball back 98 yards for a touchdown on the following kickoff, putting the Utes up 31-10. Then, after the Utah defense forced Fresno State to punt on the next drive, true freshman Britain Covey returned a punt back 57 yards for his first collegiate touchdown.
“Special teams finally came alive and did some good things after a disastrous start,” Whittingham said.
Even though the Bulldogs were down 38-10 after the back-to-back scores by the special teams, they weren’t quite done.
The Bulldogs got another touchdown on their next drive, and when it came time to kick the ball back, they instead recovered an onside-kick, eventually scoring again to make the score 38-24. Fresno would not find the end zone again, but the Utes did with 14 seconds left on the clock when Thompson found tight end Harrison Handley for the final score of the game.
Thompson did, in fact, start in place of the injured Travis Wilson and finished with 159 passing yards. Whittingham also played third-string QB Chase Hansen for a couple of plays in the first half.
“Offensively, it was okay,” Whittingham said. “We were pretty efficient throwing, but we wanted to get more ‘chunk’ yards, but we didn’t do that. We want more big plays, more explosives in the throwing game.”
Things did not start as planned for the Utes. Boobie Hobbs fumbled the opening kickoff, which Fresno State recovered, but the Utah defense held the Bulldogs to just a field goal. The Utes got right back on track on their next drive with Devontae Booker powering his way down the field, giving Andy Phillips good position to tie the game. On the ensuing drive, Stevie Tu’ikolovatu recovered a fumble and returned it for six points to put the Utes up 10-3.
“I just saw where the ball landed and got a lucky bounce into my hands, and I didn’t hear a whistle so I kept running,” Tu’ikolovatu said.
Booker played a big role early on, running for 95 yards and a touchdown in the first half. Late in the second quarter on fourth-and-one, Booker was handed the ball and made a nice spin move to avoid the tackle and ran it 30 yards for the score, putting the Utes up 17-3 early on.
Fresno State started off the second half the exact same way Utah started off the game, fumbling the kickoff. Just as the Utah defense came through in the first half, the Fresno State defense came through stronger, intercepting Thompson’s pass in the endzone, but this did not put a hamper on Utah’s offensive play.
The Bulldogs were unable to make anything of the pick, and on the next Utes’ drive, Booker again carried the offense and got his second touchdown of the game. He finished the game with 156 yards rushing and 56 receiving yards.
Defensive leaders included Jared Norris, who had 10 tackles, and Marcus Williams with seven.
Utah kicks off Pac-12 play in Eugene next week when it travels to play Oregon next Saturday at 6:30 p.m. MT. Whittingham knows his team will need to step it up if they stand a chance of winning.
“We have to be ready,” Whittingham said. “We have to play better than we have and prove ourselves.”
@kbrenneisen