The Utes beat Cal in a high scoring game, 52-45, and it’s not typically how Utah goes about winning games. Utah does a better job of containing teams and preventing its opponents from putting up that many points on the board. But a win is a win and head coach Kyle Whittingham is grateful his team came out on top.
Whittingham thinks the offense executed its game plan pretty well, but there is room for improvement on the defense after allowing UCLA to score 45 points. The Bruins did not run the ball effectively against the Utes — they have not been running the ball well all season long — but what Whittingham does need to see from his players is more tenacity in going after the quarterback.
UCLA’s starting quarterback Mike Fafaul attempted 70 passes against the Utes and he finished with 464 passing yards. A bright side for the Utah defense, however, is that it came away with four interceptions. Whittingham understands that when a team’s offense centers that heavily around a quarterback’s play the numbers are bound to be a bit skewed, but he still would have liked coverage to be more up to par.
“Gave up a little too much in the throw game,” Whittingham said. “We got a lot of work to do there. We didn’t do a good enough job of getting to the quarterback, should have disrupted the quarterback more than we did.”
Williams in peak condition
Joe Williams broke Utah’s single game rushing record after he finished the game against UCLA with a total of 332 rushing yards. Although he was sitting in retirement just a few weeks ago, Whittingham would somewhat call it a blessing in disguise that the Utes suffered such a huge amount of hits at running back, with multiple players sitting out due to injury.
“He wouldn’t have been back if we hadn’t had a need at that position, so [it’s] a silver lining I guess as far as that goes,” Whittingham said. “It’s been a unique year. We were down to nothing at that position and it was the pathway for Joe to come back.”
Offensive line making strides
At the beginning of the season the offensive line struggled to find a rhythm. The onslaught of injuries to the starting centers did nothing to help the cause, but Whittingham is finally starting to see the offensive line as how he pictured it would be at the beginning of the season.
After the game against UCLA, Joe Williams credited a lot of his success to the play of the offensive linemen and how they were able to create some big holes for him, and in doing so they opened up the entire field at times. Whittingham would call that game the offensive line’s best outing so far into the year and he hopes they can do the same against a stiff Washington team at home this weekend.
“When we went into the season we thought we were going to have one of the best offensive lines in the Pac-12, and we didn’t start off with a bang; we started off sluggish and slow,” Whittingham said. “I think we built up momentum as the season wore on and that [the UCLA game] was by far the best performance of the year.
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