Hey, it’s a win. Utah beats Oregon State 19-14

Hey, you know what, it was a win, was it a pretty win? Nope! At the end of the day Utah is 6-1 and 3-1 in the Pac-12, but it wasn’t the prettiest effort for the Utes up in Corvallis. In a windy and rainy game on the road, the Utes had plenty of opportunities to blow out Oregon State, but wasn’t able to.

In the first half, Utah was rather dominant statistically, but the red zone bugaboo was still an issue, as Utah couldn’t punch in a touchdown, or a field goal, after turning it over on downs inside the five. Utah did pick up 229 yards in that first half, with 198 on the ground. The o-line was creating some big running lanes for the running backs, who welcomed back Joe Williams from retirement, and had his best day of a Ute with 179 yards on 34 carries and one touchdown run.

Joe was really needed to, as Zack Moss missed his second straight game, as did Troy McCormick. Utah did run Cory Butler-Byrd as a running back throughout the game (although they went away from it a bit in the second half). CBB did a good job with 54 yards on 10 carries, and was good at eluding early tackles.

In the second half, the mad scientist Gary Andersen fixed his defense and really shut down Utah, as they only allowed the Utes to pick up 88 yards, 77 on the ground. It was pretty evident that Utah was going very conservative in this weather, which was evident by Troy Williams going for only 4 of 13 for 42 yards. Troy Williams was effective on the ground with 15 runs for 40 net yards (after a couple of sacks), but he did put the nail in the Beavers coffin with a rushing touchdown after the defense forced a fumble within the 10 yard line with under 4 minutes left in the game.

Outside of the result, Utah lost a couple of players today, with star safety Marcus Williams going down with some kind of knee injury, and linebacker Sunia Tauteoli leaving the game with some injury. Those are two big names, as they pretty much all have been, that hopefully won’t be out for an extended period of time.

Hey, it’s a win, a road win in conference, and Utah has clinched bowl eligibility, and remain tied for the Pac-12 South lead.