The Utes are now six days separated from their excruciating home loss to Washington State and have one more day of preparation before facing quarterback Brett Hundley and eighth-ranked UCLA in the Rose Bowl on Saturday.
With a 2-1 home record for Utah, every road game is now crucial to getting that golden sixth win and a chance to return to the college football postseason that has eluded the Utes the past two seasons. Upsetting the heavily favored Bruins in Pasadena would surely go a long way in meeting that goal.
Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham was complimentary of UCLA, but when he says this Bruins team is loaded, they are really loaded.
“They’re a team that’s loaded top to bottom,” Whittingham said. “Virtually every position has exceptional players. The quarterback is exceptional, just like it seems to be with every team in this conference.”
Even though Whittingham would like to put junior quarterback Travis Wilson in that category of elite Pac-12 quarterbacks, Wilson’s play on Saturday was less than exceptional with 18 completions on 38 pass attempts for only 165 yards and no touchdowns.
“We just seemed out of sync in the throwing game all night long,” Whittingham said. “In this league, you’ve got to be able to throw the ball consistently week in and week out, and we didn’t do that Saturday night.”
Wilson is going to have to be much more efficient with his throws and will need to complete at least a couple of downfield passes if the Utes want to compete with a UCLA offense that scored 48 points — not counting the defensive and special teams touchdowns from cornerback Ishmael Adams — and put up 580 yards against Arizona State.
One of the biggest offensive setbacks for the Utes last Saturday was senior receiver and offensive captain Dres Anderson’s failure to complete a pass. Anderson leads the team in receiving yards (252), yards per game (63) and yards per catch (19.4).
“Dres was open a few times, one time the ball was right on the money, and he couldn’t come up with the catch. It was late in the game and it obviously would have been huge for us,” Whittingham said. “He’s one of our biggest weapons on offense, and that hurt us, not having him as involved.”
Although Anderson didn’t record a catch for the Utes against Washington State, the offensive captain has not wavered, and he wants to spread his confidence to the rest of his teammates in a make-or-break portion of the season.
“The leadership committee — we’re just keeping everybody together,” Anderson said. “Last week was a heartbreaking loss, but what are we going to do about it? Let it beat us again this week? We can’t do that. We have to push forward. It’s not like it’s getting any easier through the season, so we have to keep our heads high and play great every week.”
While the offense tries to find the more successful version of itself from early in the season, the defense will be spending every waking hour focusing on containing UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley and making his job as difficult as possible.
While the Utah defense couldn’t come up big when it counted most against the Cougars, they were still able to come up with three takeaways, via a fumble and two Connor Halliday interceptions, and are still tied for second in the nation in sacks per game (4.5) and tackles for loss per game (9.5).
In order to keep Hundley from making big plays with his arm or his feet, the Utah defense is going to need a big initial push from its defensive line and the linebackers. The defensive ends will have to contain the edges and force Hundley to try and beat the Utes’ secondary.
The defensive line has had no shortage of physical play this season, and they love to play harder against the bigger opponents. One UCLA player described the yearly matchup with the Utes to the L.A. Times as “a bloodbath.”
UCLA offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone also told L.A. Times that the Utah defense is one of the strongest they face year in and year out.
“They have that R-H factor, run and hit,” Mazzone said. “This is a big challenge for our backs, for our line and for Brett [Hundley]. We got to get the ball out quickly at times. It’s going to be an interesting night.”
The Utes will travel to Pasadena, Calif. today, and the matchup with UCLA will kickoff at 8:30 p.m. MT in the Rose Bowl.
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