Last week against USC in the Coliseum it was a grind, but Utah got it done and in the process looked as though they had a QB emerging that could replace Cam Rising for the rest of the year without losing a step. And even though I thought, if not for the ego of the head coach, the Ducks had my Huskies beat and therefore had a great chance against Utah—even in Salt Lake City in their precious Rice-Eccles Stadium–I never once thought it would look this easy. I mean Utah has won back-to-back PAC-12 Conference titles and in the process had not lost a single game at home. If you toss out the COVID-19 season in which Utah had to cancel the first two games because they didn’t have enough players available, the last home game they lost with a full team was back in Game 4 of the 2018 season against then No. 10 Washington. As far as Oregon goes they hadn’t won on the road at Utah in seven years. But this past Saturday, man, they sure made it look easy. Even Utah Head Coach Kyle Whittingham had little to say afterwards other than; “When you get beat like that, you don’t want to berate your team and browbeat them. What happened out there was enough.”
If not for Bucky Irving’s fumble on Oregon’s first play of their second drive, down on their own 25 yard line, the Ducks would have held Utah to just the three points they got with time running out in the first half. As it turned out that fumble led to another field goal which gave them a total of six—the only six points they would score the entire game against 35 for their opponent. After averaging 183 yards rushing in their first seven games, by the end of the 3rd quarter in this one Utah had accumulated just 28. If not for that miscue Oregon probably would have scored on their first four possessions of the game, but as it was they scored TD’s on three of the first four to make it 21-6 going into the break. Two on Bo Nix passes, one to Sophomore RB Jordan James and one to Junior WR Troy Franklin, and one on a Bo Nix run. For the game Nix would complete over 75% of his passes for 248 yards—multiple times to five different receivers—for those 2 TD’s and no interceptions. RB’s Bucky Irving and Jordan James provided most all of the running attack for the Ducks, combining for 121 of the entire 142 rushing yards with Irving and Treashon Holden picking up two more scores on the ground.
Against the aggressive pass and run defense of Oregon, Utah struggled to get any points at all on the board and, after putting up six points in the first half on two field goals, got worse after the break. Punting after a three-and-out on their first possession of the second half, Utah turned it back over on a Bryson Barnes interception on the first play of their next. After that it was back-to-back three-and-outs followed by a 13 play, 7+ minute drive that shut down after a failed 4th down conversion attempt. On the game, Utah QB Bryson Barnes completed 15-of-29 for 136 yards, no TD’s and 2 interceptions—both leading to Oregon TD’s. On the ground the Utes rushed 36 times for 99 yards.
The loss by Utah pretty much makes the PAC-12 title a three horse race at this point with an unbeaten Washington on top with the Trojans and Ducks right on their heels with just one conference loss. USC, who barely lost to Utah, will host the Huskies in a must win game this coming Saturday in order to stay in the hunt. Oregon goes back home to take on Cal while Utah will stay in Salt Lake to host Arizona State.