Utah needed a win over the No. 17 team in the country if they wanted a shot at playing in the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday, Dec. 6. They accomplished this goal with a 45-14 victory over Cincinnati. A sold-out Rice-Eccles Stadium played a massive role in what turned out to be an absolute beatdown of the Bearcats on Saturday night.
When asked about the environment during the game, Utah’s players smiled before giving their insight. “As a defensive player, the crowd makes a really big difference. I’m sure they already know, but it’s really a game-changer having them there,” Jonah Lea’ea, sophomore defensive tackle, said. “Shout out to the fans for real. They help us a lot more than they know.”
Quarterback Devon Dampier added his comments. “The blackout was sick. I think they did a good job of that. I saw a whole bunch of people swinging their shirts around with shirts off, I liked it, it was fun,” he said.
Utah’s crowd wasn’t the only group that showed up from the start. Thanks to an early defensive stop and touchdown, the Utes went ahead in the first quarter, gaining a lead that the Bearcats would never erase. An all-around team effort saw six different Utes cross the goal line with touchdowns.
While the scores by Wayshawn Parker, NaQuari Rogers, Ryan Davis, Creed Whittemore and Byrd Ficklin were all great, none were quite as special as Mana Carvalho’s 75-yard punt return.
Carvalho is a true freshman out of Kahuku High School in Laie, Hawaii. The 5-foot-9 wide receiver broke through as a punt returner and made his debut in week five against West Virginia. He returned two punts for 6 yards vs. the Mountaineers, showing a glimpse of what he was capable of.
Carvalho continued working in practice and eventually claimed the spot as Utah’s primary punt returner. In his next game vs. Arizona State, Carvalho flashed for a 24-yard return, once again, showing off a little bit more of the potential he had. Everything was trending in the right direction for the No. 10 prospect from Hawaii, until it wasn’t.
In Utah’s second loss of the season at BYU, the Utes had worked to swing all the momentum their way after a slow start. Thanks to a game-tying touchdown on offense and a three-play stop on defense, Utah was set up nicely to control the clock and go into halftime with a lead. This was until disaster struck: Carvalho waved for a fair catch on the punt return at Utah’s 40-yard line. A simple catch would have allowed Utah to run the offense back onto the field, but Carvalho misjudged the ball’s downward trajectory, causing him to muff it into BYU’s hands.
A simple mistake was the momentum shift that allowed BYU to take a lead into halftime, proving to be the difference. Carvalho knew he had let his team down and felt that his spot as punt-returner was long gone.
Ryan Davis has been Utah’s top receiver this season. He sat next to Carvalho in the locker room, and he gave some insight into the conversation they had after that moment. “Mana [Carvalho] was getting hated on big time after that game, and I sat down right next to him in the locker room and said, ‘Dude, there’s going to come a point in the season soon where they’re going to be loving you.’ And I was so happy to see him bring it back to the house today. That’s just a testimony of who he is as a person and a player. I love this dude right here,” Davis said.
Carvalho was asked about his mindset throughout this emotional season. “That fumble, that’s in the past. I can’t do anything to get that back. Really, it’s just moving forward and finding what I can do to make this program better by just being smarter back there, and when it’s time to return something, then try to get as much as I can out of it and trusting my blockers,” he said.
It was an emotional press conference for all the right reasons. Utah has taken care of business in back-to-back weeks, as it can only hope for the dice to roll in its favor down the stretch.
Nobody wants this team to get a chance to play in the Big 12 title game more than Carvalho, and his play on the field has been nothing short of amazing as a result. Watch for him to make an impact against Baylor on Nov. 15, but for now, hope for some help in the conference standings. As always, go Utes!
