The Utes suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday when they were not able to score a game winning touchdown in closing seconds on the road against Cal. Head coach and Kyle Whittingham and the majority of the players felt like they went with the right play calls and that they executed their game plan well, but they were ultimately unable to score that one final touchdown.
A timeout confusion between the referees and Whittingham — the referees granted Whittingham a timeout even though he did not ask for one — had a dramatic part in the game’s ending result in Whittingham’s opinion. When the game was over, Whittingham appeared to be yelling at the referees, “That’s on you.”
“It had a huge impact, it was giant,” Whittingham said. “You can’t run the ball twice, because you only have one timeout now, and it limited our options. It was very unfortunate that it turned out that way.”
Aside from that, the team understands it cannot keep playing catch up. This was the second game in a row where the Utes fell behind by two touchdowns, and it makes the game harder on the defense as well to prevent the opposing team from increasing its lead.
Looking ahead to the upcoming game against Arizona, quarterback Troy Williams hopes the Utes can put this loss behind them and get back on track.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Williams said. “We didn’t win and now we have to bounce back and continue to keep our heads up and not let this loss beat us twice.”
Fourth down efficiency
One positive takeaway from the first five games of the season is that the Utes are 9-for-10 on fourth down conversions. That one failed conversion came midway through the fourth quarter, however, when the Utes were only 10 yards away from scoring a touchdown against Cal that would have given them a late lead.
The coaching staff likes how the offensive line has been performing compared to the beginning of the season where it faltered on more than one occasion. The offensive line’s improvement is one big reason why Whittingham continues to leave his offense out on the field in a 4th-and-short situation, instead of either punting the ball away or settling for a field goal.
“We’ve come up with more 4th-and-shorts in the last couple games than sometimes you do in a season,” Whittingham said. “We got a lot of confidence in the o-line, got physical running backs. It’s been a big plus for us, and it’s had a positive effect on our offense. You got to change your philosophy to be more aggressive.”
Wide receivers stepping up
The Utah offense was without its primary wide receiver Tim Patrick for the majority of the game against Cal. Although the team did miss him, Williams has a lot of confidence in the entire receiving corps and plenty of other guys stepped up, Raelon Singleton being one of them.
Singleton finished Saturday’s game with seven receptions for 98 yards, and Whittingham hopes he can build off of this performance for the upcoming game against Arizona.
“He’s starting to play the way we envisioned him,”Whittingham said. “He’s really picked up the slack and made some nice plays for us.”
Side note:
Starting center J.J. Dielman is done for the season after suffering a lower leg injury in the first half of the game against Cal.
@kbrenneisen