In a 56-14 victory, it’s sometimes hard to find things a team did wrong. Utah’s beat-down of Idaho State last Thursday wasn’t one of those times. The Utes gave up 179 yards rushing to the Bengals, something head coach Kyle Whittingham was still upset about Monday.
“Our run defense, that’s the thing that irks me the most,” he said during his weekly press conference.
After reviewing the game tape, however, the coach feels the mistakes are easily correctable.
“It was assignments, not necessarily personnel,” Whittingham said. “Not cancelling gaps that needed to be cancelled. It’s not a real difficult fix, all you got to do is get in the right gap, so we will work hard this week to make sure that happens. It’s not like we were getting manhandled, it was more assignment errors.”
The run defense wasn’t the only thing concerning Whittingham after the opening win. Continuing a trend from last season, the Utes failed to force a turnover against Idaho State.
“That’s a huge negative, and I expressed to the team and the coaching staff we are going to have a very difficult time in the Pac-12 if that shows up [in conference play],” Whittingham said. “We got to get that reversed, that was the Achilles’ heel last year. We got to get takeaways.”
Something that should help Utah force more turnovers is the promotion of Dominique Hatfield to starting corner. Hatfield came into camp as a receiver, but need in the secondary caused him to become a two-way player. After his debut Thursday, Whittingham wants to see more of him on the defensive end.
“His debut at corner was very good, he did a lot of good things,” Whittingham said. “He is still a two-way player, he’s still going to play some receiver, but it’s been a reversal. Up to this point he was primarily a receiver playing corner secondarily. It’s reversed now, and he’s primarily a corner and playing receiver as a secondary position.”
Whittingham also said, “[He] led his team in interceptions, led the county in high school. Having him back there more often should give us a chance with a guy with great ball skills to get the ball out of the air for us.”
Clay’s Performance Earns Promotion
After returning both a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown against Idaho State it was little surprise to see junior college transfer Kaelin Clay be the main returner for both kickoffs and punts on the depth chart released Monday. The same cannot be said for his promotion to starting wideout.
“When the ball’s in his hand, he’s dangerous,” Whittingham said. “He’s proved to us that he is as advertised.”
The move is a way to get Clay more opportunities to use his speed to affect the game. After missing the first part of fall camp, Clay has steadily progressed to the point where he has earned a bigger role on the team.
“He’s made a lot of progress, he is just about caught up. It was both from a physical and mental standpoint,” Whittingham said. “He didn’t get here until right before two-a-days had started. He’s certainly made a lot of ground in the game with the returns. Still, his stamina is not where it needs to be. He is still getting that down with that altitude and the fast tempo we are playing at. He was nowhere near ready for that at the very beginning, but he’s getting closer now. He’s a big-play guy, that was very apparent when he touched the ball Thursday night.”
Offensive Line Help
When the Utes lined up against Idaho State, starting center Siaosi Aiono didn’t take the field. On Monday, Whittingham revealed the junior’s absence was not because of a demotion, but something between the coach and his player. Whatever it was has been worked out, and Whittingham is excited to see him back in the trenches on Saturday.
“It’s going to be great to get Siaosi at center,” Whittingham said. “He’s a guy that had a very good spring and had a good fall camp. He didn’t play because I wasn’t pleased with something that was between me and him, but he will be in the lineup this week.”
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