Utah drops heartbreaker to Oregon, 30-28

The 11th game of the year is the ultimate bugaboo for the Utes, and it continues to be, as the Utes dropped a heartbreaker to the Ducks 30-28 at Rice-Eccles Stadium. The Utes were able to move the ball up and down the field for large chunks of the game, but just simply stalled out way to often, on a combination of poor play calls, and some poor execution. The Utes had the ball in scoring position a couple of additional times, but were not able to punch in either a field goal or a touchdown. The Utah offense did score their first and final times touching the ball, including a score with about 2 minutes remaining to give Utah the 28-24 lead.

On defense, the Utes gave up some plays, no doubt, but that’s to be expected against Oregon. The problem for the Utes is that they couldn’t get off the field in 3rd and long scenarios, which is a killer. The game came down to a play in the end zone with 2 seconds remaining, where Oregon was able (or were they?) to get a touchdown in the corner of the end zone that the officials eventually overturned from an incomplete pass.

What does this mean? Well, unless UCLA beats USC and WSU beats CU, Utah’s out of the PAC-12 South race. The biggest issue is that USC probably won’t lose to UCLA.

Ultimately, Utah played with fire way too often this year, and they finally got burned. They never really fell behind like they have in previous games, but they weren’t able to put some distance between them and Oregon, and they had opportunities to do just that.

Well, this sucks. On to the next!