Playing on the road and once again without their starting QB, Cam Rising, Utah hung on for a 22-19 conference opener against Oklahoma State. With neither team moving the ball on their first possessions of the game it was the Cowboys that got on the board first at the end of a 62 yard 10 play drive and 23 yard Logan Ward field goal to go up 3-0. Although Utah’s backup QB Isaac Wilson would throw an interception on their next possession, the Utes would hold them to a three-and-out to get the ball back and tie the score at 3-3 early in the 2nd Qtr on a Cole Becker 43 yard field goal. Holding Oklahoma State to another three-and-out Utah would extend their lead 64 yards and 11 plays later on a Brant Kuithe TD run to make it 10-3 halfway through the 2nd Qtr. But that would be all the scoring before the break as the rest of the 2nd Qtr would consist of a missed field goal, a fumble, and two interceptions.
The second half didn’t start out much better with two three-and-outs, one punt and a missed field goal. Finally in their third possession of the 3rd Qtr Utah would put three more on the board on another Cole Becker field goal—this one from 38 yards out. The next six possessions would consist of five three-and-outs and yet another field goal from Cole Becker at the end of a 10 play 44 yard drive. This one from 44 yards out to make it a 16-3 game with most of the 4th Qtr left to play. Four more three-and-outs would go by before Utah would intercept a pass from Oklahoma State’s Alan Bowman with Isaac Wilson hitting Brant Kuithe for a 45 yard TD pass on Utah’s first play after the pick—now up 22-3 with over six minutes remaining in the game. The Cowboys would hold Utah scoreless the rest of the way while scoring 2 TD’s and both two-point conversions but it was too little too late.
For Utah, QB Isaac Wilson was 17-of-29 for 207 yards, 1 TD to Senior TE Brant Kuithe, and 2 interceptions while also rushing six time for 41 yards. As far as the ground game goes it was Senior RB Micah Bernard doing just about all the work rushing 25 times for 182 of their 249 yard total on the ground with Kuithe also getting their lone rushing TD. All the rest of the points came from Place Kicker Cole Becker who hit three out of his four field goal attempts and was perfect on the sole PAT he tried. For Oklahoma State, their Senior QB Alan Bowman connected slightly less than 50% of the time for 206 yards to seven different receivers, 2 TD’s—one each to Senior WR’s Brennan Presley and Rashod Owens—and 2 interceptions.
As Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said after the game; “Made that more dramatic than we needed to, but we handled it well and got the win. Proud of our guys. Didn’t always play as smart as we needed to. Had a chance to put the game away completely, let them back in it.” Cowboy head coach Mike Gundy had this to say; “Offensively, we were awful. We couldn’t get any quarterback play, and then all of a sudden, late in the game we start playing better at quarterback. They won the game, but we certainly did a lot of things to help them.” Utah heads back home to host Arizona this next Saturday.