There are lots of reasons Kyle Whittingham has been the head coach at Utah since 2005 and holds the record for most wins—a record that will never be broken. I don’t think he has ever signed up for a Week-1 non-conference game against any team that he thought he was going to lose against. Even when he stretched out into the SEC or Big Ten in order for his program to get some early national recognition and ranking he was successful way more times than not—beating Michigan in 2015, Indiana in 2019 and Florida last year after losing by just three on the road to the gators the year before—a year in which Utah ended up winning the PAC-12 Conference Championship. Over the last ten years six of the teams he signed up were dead-on-arrival including this year’s 49-0 victim Southern Utah who they also beat 24-0 in 2016.
Utah is certainly a team that should benefit from the new playoff format. In the past, for any team not in the Big-10 or SEC, you not only needed to win all your games but in order to be considered for that four team playoff you needed to record lots of style points which is how much you beat your opponent by. In needing to do that you would most likely keep most of your starters in longer than necessary to just win the game. Now, a team like Utah, can protect their most important players by taking them out of the game once it’s decided which is exactly what Kyle Whittingham did in this one after his star QB Cam Rising, back after being out all of last year to injury, hung 35 on Southern Utah before the break and spent the rest of this very easy opener on the bench.
Rising, although connecting just ten times to his receivers, recorded 254 yards in the air, 5 TD’s and no interceptions with Sophomore RB Dijon Stanley and Senior TE Brant Kuithe collecting over 200 of those and all five scores—three to Kuithe who, like Rising, missed all of last season due to injury. His reliever, Freshman QB Isaac Wilson, connected on 7-of-11 for 74 yards and 1 TD to Senior TE Caleb Lohner, to go along with two picks, neither of which led to any points on the board for the Thunderbirds. You might say Kyle runs an Air Raid on the Ground offense which literally means instead of throwing to six plus different receivers 30 to 40 times a game with about 25% of your plays devoted to the run you have the reverse with just as many different players who in this case ran the ball collectively 36 times for all but 8 of their 185 yards on the ground to go along with a rushing TD by Freshman RB Mike Mitchell.
It’s always great to have a balanced offensive attack unless of course your game in the air and on the ground are equally horrendous which was the case with Southern Utah. The Junior starting QB for the Thunderbirds, Jackson Berry, was 6-of-11 for just 54 yards, no points, and one interception. The two back-ups they put in were much worse, connecting with their receivers on just 2-of-10 for a combined 17 yards. Southern Utah’s ground game was only slightly better—rushing 30 times for just 79 yards without ever coming close to scoring. Their entire offensive effort resulted in eight punts, one interception, and a 48 yard failed field goal attempt as they tried to get some points on the board before the end of the game on a 4th and 10 with just two minutes left. The game stats were as lopsided as the score with Utah leading in first downs 26-to-9; passing yards, 328-to-79; as well as total yards, 513-to-150. Utah will stay at home in Rice-Eccles Stadium for what undoubtedly will be their 85th consecutive sellout as they host Baylor on September 7th at 12:30pm on Fox.