Utah Football Hands No. 21 Colorado First Loss of Season
Utah Utes played Oregon State Beavers on December 5, 2020 at the Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. Utah won with 30-24. (Photo by Ivana Martinez | Daily Utah Chronicle)
December 12, 2020
The University of Utah football team is finally at .500 as they took down No. 21 Colorado 38-21 in this year’s edition of the Rumble in the Rockies.
“Proud of this team,” said head coach Kyle Whittingham. “They never flinched. They hung in there. The offense got clickin’ and scored 28 points in the second half. Jake Bentley got hot in that second half. He was 10 of 19 in the first half and then 10 of 12 or 13 in the second half, so he really picked up his play. Lot of plays are being made out there by a lot of people. Brit Covey had some key catches, kept some drives alive. Ty Jordan, another big rushing day. Defense played solid throughout. The most important thing is that this team hung in there and never flinched and just kept fighting and found a way to win,” he said.
Utah was able to come out right out of the gates, scoring on their first drive. Jake Bentley connected with Solomon Enis for a 7-yard touchdown. Things seemed to stutter for the Utes on offense after that drive. The next two ensuing drives ended in Ben Lennon punts.
“The biggest thing for me personally, and for the team was having a ‘so what now what’ mentality. That’s something I always try to think of, in life or whatever. ‘So what we get stalled out.’ I missed a third down to Brant [Kuithe], there’s some things that happened that were negative but so what and now what. Now what do we have to do,” Bentley said.
While the Utes weren’t able to find the back of the endzone, the Buff were able to find the endzone twice. The first was a 21-yard pass from Sam Noyer to Maurice Bell and the second was an 81-yard punt return from Brenden Rice.
As the half was coming to an end, CU running back Jarek Broussard coughed the ball up deep in CU territory. While the Utes weren’t able to score a touchdown, kicker Jadon Redding made a 42-yard field goal as time expired for the half.
The second half didn’t start well for the Utes, who gave up a 61-yard touchdown from Noyer to Rice on the opening play of the half. But that was the last time the Buffaloes would score in the game.
True freshman running back, Ty Jordan added to his resume as to why he should be freshman of the year putting up 147 yards on the day. He had two touchdowns in the victory, an 18-yard rush and a 66-yard score that sealed the Utah victory. Dalton Kincaid caught the pass for the two-point conversion on the final Jordan touchdown.
Britain Covey carried over his game from last week, leading the team with 76-yards and one touchdown. Covey also had an additional 132-yards through both punt and kickoff returns. Bentley also had a good game going 20-32 for 210 yards on the day. He did have one interception in the victory.
“When Jake is confident he is amazing,” Covey said. “He plays so tough. I mean, you saw some of those scrambles. You gotta know what that does for the rest of the team. They see him out there looking like Hercules, breaking three or four tackles on a scramble. It pumps all of us up, it makes you want to go to war with someone like that.”
Brant Kuithe accounted for 53 yards, and Enis had 34. Bryan Thompson rounded out the top receivers with 42 yards.
While the Utes only turned the ball over once, the Utah defense was able to force three Colorado turnovers. Nephi Sewell had an interception as well as a forced fumble. Maxs Tupai had the other forced fumble for the team.
Sewell led the team in tackles with 11, 10 solo, and Devin Lloyd was close behind with nine. Freshman Nate Ritchie had six tackles and a sack on Noyer.
Utah has one remaining game left in the 2020 season. The opponent is TBA as well as the location of the game. The conference expects to announce the matchup in the coming days.
