On a cold and rainy night in Salt Lake City, the Utes came away with a 31-27 win after some last minute heroics from Troy Williams, Tim Patrick and the play calling of their head coach Kyle Whittingham.
Down three points with 5:37 left to go, the Utes started their final drive at their own seven yard line, but behind Williams’ leadership, the Utes trekked all the way down the field. Williams connected with Patrick for 14 yards early in the drive, then for eight yards, again for nine yards and one final time for an 18-yard touchdown.
“Troy Williams kept his cool and never flinched,” Whittingham said.
More to that was the fact Utah converted two fourth downs on its game winning drive, four overall in the game, and even on a 4th-and-inches in the red zone, Whittingham had Zack Moss go for it rather than just tie the game at 27.
Williams finished the night 21-of-24 for 270 yards, and he had two passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown. However, he’s already looking ahead to what he needs to do for the next game.
“We’re going to enjoy this win tonight, maybe a little more tomorrow morning, but [we’ll] move on and continue to focus on that next week ahead,” Williams said.
Patrick was the leading receiver with six catches for 100 yards. Moss finished with 90 yards on 23 carries, and Armand Shyne ended with 14 carries for 62 yards.
The run game worked to USC’s advantage in the first half. JuJu Smith-Schuster rushed for 12 yards to get a first down, and Justin Davis rushed for 16 yards after, but Chase Hansen forced a fumble.
Moss started to catch fire, and he moved the chains a couple of times, and Williams used his legs to get a first down. Later in the drive when Utah facing a fourth down, Whittingham decided to keep his offense on the field, and Moss gained three yards on a 4th-and-1. Williams then rushed for a 10 yard touchdown, and the Utes went up 7-0. However, Adoree Jackson responded with a 100 yard kickoff return touchdown to tie the game.
“We planned to never let Adoree Jackson touch the ball, and we served it up to him on a silver platter,” Whittingham said.
Utah was later making its way down the field, but Moss fumbled the ball, and Jackson recovered it. Davis rushed for 18 yards immediately after as the Utah defense continued to struggle with the run game. USC quarterback Sam Darnold then hit Steve Mitchell for 23 yards, but Darnold fumbled on USC’s next play, and Utah recovered it.
Utah couldn’t make USC pay for this turnover, and Mitch Wishnowsky had a 58 yard punt to pin USC at the three yard line. Dominique Hatfield got called for pass interference which made things a bit easier on the Trojans. Smith-Schuster was wide open in the middle of the field for another big gain. USC’s Ronald Jones would fumble the ball, and Hansen recovered his second fumble.
Williams connected with Patrick for a 40 yard gain, and the Utes got in the red zone. The USC defense kept the Utes from advancing, and Utah settled for a field goal to go up 10-7.
Davis exploded for a 50 yard rush following the Utah score, and again on that same drive for a 14 yard touchdown to give USC its first lead of the night at 14-10.
USC got one more score in before the half, and the Trojans led 17-10 going into the locker rooms.
The Trojans continued to go at the Utes’ weak spots, and they ran the ball. Later on USC’s first offensive drive of the second half Darnold found Smith-Schuster for a 35 yard pass, and USC had a first-and-goal. Darnold soon got into the endzone following an eight yard rushing touchdown.
Utah’s throw game started to show some life, and after a bit of trickery Williams found Harrison Handley for a 28 yard gain, and then Raelon Singleton for an 18 yard pass. Shyne then ran the ball into the endzone, and he fumbled it, but offensive lineman Isaac Asiata recovered it, resulting in a touchdown for the Utes to make the score 24-17.
“Probably won’t happen again, but I hope it does,” Asiata said.
USC made a few nice plays to close out the third quarter, but the Trojans eventually settled for field goal at the start of the fourth quarter to increase their lead to 10 points.
Williams found his groove in the second half, and he kept finding open guys down the field, and soon enough he hit Singleton for a 10 yard passing touchdown to bring the Utes within three points of the Trojans. Later, Utah would go on to score the game winning touchdown.
Next up, the Utes will travel to Berkley to face Cal at 3:00 p.m. PT next Saturday.
@kbrenneisen