All the little, nagging, inopportune mistakes that plagued the Utah football team a year ago, but have been remarkably silent from this season’s campaign, finally showed up at Saturday’s 19-17 loss at Colorado State.
Turns out, they weren’t skipping out on the party?they were just making a fashionably late entrance.
Consequently, such costly miscues as a Cliff Russell goal line fumble, a pair of botched Ryan Kaneshiro field goals (one shanked, one blocked) and the ever-so-curious failure to cover Rams receiver Pete Rebstock on CSU’s final scoring drive were the primary precipitating factor’s in Utah’s fourth straight loss to Colorado State.
The blown opportunities and assignments brought an abrupt halt to the U’s four-game win streak and dropped the team to 5-2 overall, 2-1 MWC.
CSU improved to 4-4, 3-1 in league play.
The Utes had their chances?
They took a 7-0 lead with 7:22 to play in the opening quarter when quarterback Lance Rice culminated a 5-play, 66-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown toss to fullback Rob Sirstens.
But soon thereafter, the foul-ups ensued.
Kaneshiro missed a 35-yard field goal in the waning moments of the first half, but the Utes got another chance when CSU safety Jason Gallimore roughed up U holder Brad Burtenshaw after the play.
The Utes reached the 2-yard line, but couldn’t get into the end zone, leaving Kaneshiro to attempt another chip shot, only to see it blocked by Rhett Nelson.
Another foray inside the red zone in the third quarter similarly yielded zero points as Russell caught a pass, made his way to the 1-yard line, stretched the ball toward the goal-line and coughed it up for a touchback.
Utah regained its composure for a time?settling down sufficiently to limit the Rams to just 36 yards in the third quarter and taking a 14-13 lead when Rice found receiver Josh Lyman for a 47-yard scoring strike with 2:35 to go in the third.
That was the last time anything went right, though.
In the final 15 minutes, Utah’s secondary left Rebstock alone, and his 46 yard reception from Bradlee Van Pelt set up a 1-yard TD run by Duan Ruff just three plays later.
It was a deficit the Utes could not recover from, as their final mistake of the afternoon came on Rice’s unwieldy fourth-down heave that was easily picked off by Gallimore.
Utah will attempt to get things back under control this coming Saturday when it heads to Las Vegas for a noon (Pacific Time) matchup with UNLV.
The Utes can only hope that next time, the miscues will decide the effort it takes to make the road trip won’t be worth it.