The Utes must now turn their focus toward Colorado after a demoralizing 42-10 loss at the hands of Arizona.
“It was a disappointing game,” said Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham at his weekly press conference Monday. “I think it’s pretty safe to say it was our poorest performance of the year overall and the most disappointing to me personally.”
Whittingham said his team didn’t come out with the same passion and emotion they usually start a game with, and that ultimately led to the fourth-quarter meltdown when the Wildcats took control.
“As the game wore on, we seemed to fade. That’s uncharacteristic of us,” Whittingham said. “As poorly as we played and as many mistakes as we had, it was still 21-10 going into the fourth quarter, and we let it get away from us.”
A pivotal player in Arizona’s success was freshman running back Nick Wilson, who gained 114 of his 218 total rushing yards in the fourth quarter, as well as a pair of touchdowns. With the Wildcats’ starting quarterback Anu Solomon out with an injury and redshirt senior Jesse Scroggins backing him up, Arizona was going to have to rely on their run game. That’s when Nick Wilson came up big, and the Utah defense simply had no answer for the speedy youngster.
Junior defensive tackle Clint Shepard said there wasn’t just one problem with the defense, but that missed cues and missed assignments caused problems that couldn’t be made up.
“It’s just one of those games where you can’t pinpoint one thing,” Shepard said. “It was one person missing their assignment on one play, another person missing their assignment on the next. Overall, as a team, we just have to get better.”
The Utes will want to regroup against their Rocky Mountain counterparts on Saturday. While the Buffaloes have taken some competitive teams to the brink of disaster — most notably UCLA in double overtime — they are ultimately winless in conference play and only have wins against Hawaii and UMass to show for their 2014 season.
Regardless, the Buffaloes have always been a thorn in the side of the Utes, including in 2011, when Colorado walked into Rice-Eccles Stadium and stole the Utes’ chance at playing in the first-ever Pac-12 title game.
“[The Buffaloes are] a good team — I don’t think they get as much credit as they maybe ought to get,” said Utah tight end Westlee Tonga. “The teams in the Pac-12 are great, especially in the Pac-12 South, and anytime you raise the level of competition of those around you, it demands that you raise your own, and that’s something they’ve done against us.”
Tonga also said that both the Utes and the Buffaloes are striving to earn respect in this league and that both teams can be dangerous when they have something to prove.
“We have kind of a brotherhood with them coming into the Pac-12 at the same time,” Tonga said. “The feeling is a little bit mutual that you crave the respect, you crave the wins coming into such a storied league. They’re still a good team — they don’t quite have the record to show for it, but they have some good players.”
Kicker Andy Phillips said this season’s heart-pounding finishes have had numerous effects on himself and the team.
“For me personally, it’s motivational,” Phillips said. “I think it depends upon the player, but as a team, Coach Whittingham does a great job of rallying us to get back on top of things and move on and not let a team or a kick beat us twice.”
Phillips also said the team has learned from both close losses and close wins.
“I think there are a lot of positives that come out of those games,” Phillips said. “We know we are that good, we are that close, we just need to make a couple more plays. So immediately, going into that next week of practice, it’s like, ‘What can I do to make that extra play?’ or ‘What didn’t I do last week that I can do this week to get better and make that play?’ There are a lot of positives we can take from our losses this year.”
 
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