At 1-3 in the Big-12 conference after Saturday’s loss to TCU, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham is just one loss away from matching the current Big Ten conference records of both USC and UCLA who at 1-4 are only one step off the bottom spot held by an 0-4 Purdue. So how’s realignment treating everybody? After last week Utah’s QB Cam Rising, in the worst game I ever saw him play, was declared out for the season with a lower leg injury and replaced by Freshman QB Isaac Wilson. As a seven year senior one has to wonder, even as talented as he is, whether he will have any kind of career in the NFL given his injury history and the number of games he’s missed. If he makes it onto a roster he might become the NFL equivalent of NBA’s Kyrie Irving who has never played a complete season in his career due to a history of injuries that dates all the way back to his days playing for Coach K where he ended up playing in only 11 games for Duke.
But back to football and Utah who is hovering near the bottom of the Big-12 in points-per-game at 24 although had they scored that many in this one they would have easily won. But instead they were completely shut-out in the first half and only scored 7 in the second half, loosing to a TCU team that with 13 points barely scored that much more. But in this one it was enough to win and one has to wonder if Whttingham who started his career at Utah as a defensive line coach working with his father Fred Whittingham, and then took over his father’s job as defensive coordinator for 10 years before becoming head coach in 1995—now closing in on 30 years with the same school—might be thinking about some of those other successful long term coaches like Chris Peterson and Nick Saban who now get paid for watching, analyzing, and describing the game on TV instead of living with the frustration of it. As reported by the AP in the Recap for ESPN Whittingham had this to say after the game; “There’s no mystery as to what our issues are. Everything is up in the air right now and everything is up for evaluation.” Everything? Interesting.
I keep drifting here—back to it. Kyle Whittingham and company had a great opportunity at the beginning of the game as TCU fumbled the ball deep in the red zone on their first drive down at the Utah 9 yard line. But the Utes couldn’t capitalize and ended up in even worse shape than their three-and-out by having their punt blocked into TCU’s hands at the Utah 15 yard line. You’d think that gift would put points on the board for TCU—but no, not this time and not even the next time. In a half that would feature 10 punts, six on three-and-out’s, a missed field goal, and a fumble TCU would finally take a 3-0 lead with just seconds left in the 1st Qtr and then make it 10-0 half-way through the 2nd Qtr on an 8 play 79 yard drive with Sophomore QB Josh Hoover running it in from just 1 yard out after connecting with Senior TE Drake Dabney for 20 yards the play before. In the meantime Utah is doing absolutely nothing on offense as they averaged just over four plays per possession over their seven first half opportunities.
The second half wasn’t that much different for either team. But as far as Utah goes they had four possessions that averaged less than 4 plays each and two turnovers on downs on a couple of drives that averaged just six plays. They did finally score a TD with a little over six minutes left in the 3rd Qtr on a three play 82 yard drive that included a 71 yard pass from Isaac Wilson to Senior WR Money Parks. But with TCU scoring a field goal on their first possession after the break, the Utah TD still put them six points back at 13-7 where it would stay in a game that made both team’s offenses look offensive. For Utah, QB Isaac Wilson connected on just 17-of-33 for 199 yards, the 1 TD to Parks, and 1 interception while dealing with four sacks and 2 pass disruptions. On the ground they were even worse, rushing 26 times for only 68 yards without ever finding the end zone against a TCU defense that recorded eight tackles for loss against them. For TCU, Sophomore QB Josh Hoover connected on 22-of-41 for 263 yards without a TD or an interception but did rush three times for their only TD of the game. The rest of their points came from their Freshman Place Kicker Kyle Lemmermann who connected on 1 PAT and 2-of-3 field goals.
Talking to Steve Bartle of KSL sports afterwards a frustrated Whittingham waxed sarcastic saying; “I guess we’re fine other than not being able to score points, make first downs, run the ball, throw the ball efficiently, [or] make a conversion on 3rd or 4th down. Other than that I think we’re okay,” and later adding; “There’s no mystery as to what our issues are, they’ve shown up for three weeks in a row now. So, we’ve got to look at everything really hard in the next 24-48 hours and make some tough decisions.” Bartle seems to think a change at Offensive Coordinator would be a good first step since there are lots of questions regarding the use of or lack there of current players who have done well at this level but have been left out of Utah’s offensive plan this year. Whatever they’re going to do they better do it quickly if they want to at least become bowl eligible this year because even though they have four wins already, two of their last five games are against No. 13 BYU and No. 9 Iowa State in addition to Colorado who they just won’t be able to keep up with offensively the way they’re playing. That leaves Houston on the road this next Saturday and UCF on November 29th in their last regular season game and maybe last game of the year completely.