Utah football coach Ron McBride is concerned that, with this week’s announcement that his Utes would be participating in the Christmas day Las Vegas Bowl, they might be inclined to overlook Air Force this Saturday.
AFA head man Fisher DeBerry, meanwhile, was concerned about a dozen of his players overlooking curfew following last week’s 52-30 loss at Hawaii.
Consequently, while the only suspension McBride has handed out lately is for senior offensive lineman Doug Kaufusi’s involvement in a January altercation, DeBerry felt compelled to sit down all 12 of his athletes who consoled themselves over the loss by partying well into the Honolulu night.
Seems now the 7-3 Utes might have an even bigger advantage over the 5-6 Falcons, who were eliminated from bowl contention with the loss to the Rainbow Warriors.
In the meantime, though, the U coach is simply trying to keep his players’ focus on the Falcons, rather than their bowl opponent, the USC Trojans.
“We’re excited to play this game?it’s a chance for us to get our eighth win,” McBride said. “We’ll talk about the bowl game after we play Air Force.”
Stopping the Falcons all comes down to stopping their vaunted option attack; despite AFA’s losing record, they are a viable threat, ranking first in the conference and third in the nation with 276.4 rushing yards per game, including 100.6 per game from senior quarterback Keith Boyea.
Utah’s defense, which is first in the conference and ninth in the nation in allowing 16.6 points per game, will have its hands full with the Falcon attack.
“Against Hawaii last week, they went up and down the field and rushed for over 500 yards, but turnovers killed them,” McBride said. “They have a good offensive line and their pitch guys are pretty good, but the biggest threat is the quarterback on the run.”
The coach said the key would be controlling the clock and limiting the Falcons’ chances?something the Utes have excelled at all year with their league-leading 34:08 average time of possession.
Meanwhile, in addition to looking for revenge from last year’s 23-14 defeat, the Utes will be looking to rebound from last game’s 24-21 defeat by BYU.
“We’ve got to go down, beat Air Force and get that bad taste out of our mouth from losing to BYU,” said senior wideout Cliff Russell.
“We want to take care of business, so everyone’s focused on Air Force,” added soph quarterback Lance Rice. “We need to finish strong, get the win and some momentum. We don’t want to go in [to the bowl game] with a two-game losing streak.”