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You can’t argue with starting 1-0 in conference play, and 4-0 on the season. The Utes did have some issues against Arizona last Friday, but they were able to battle through adversity and get the Tucson monkey off of their back. Of course, when you lose as many players to injuries as the Utes did in this game, there will be some speed bumps.
Here’s how I grade out the game:
Offense: C-
The offense started out so strong by scoring a TD on their opening possession, but when Tyler Huntley went down things changed. That’s not saying Troy Williams did a poor job, in fact he did a very good job in the game, while a couple of drops did hurt his completion percentage. He hit a big deep ball to Darren Carrington to keep a drive alive, and would have a TD but a drop in the end zone ended a 90+ yard drive. The running game showed some levels of improvement, but is still a work in progress. The offensive line has to continue to clean things up, and with a couple of painful turnovers, this wasn’t a great performance against Arizona.
Defense: C
The defense was pretty ok against Arizona. They did allow too many chunk plays to the ‘Cats, which gave them almost 450 yards of total offense, including 200 on the ground. However, the biggest problem with the defense was on 3rd down. The Utes had a hard time throughout the game getting off of the field on 3rd down, and that helped keep Arizona in the game, which was teetering at times on becoming a blow out for Utah.
Special Teams: B-
Matt Gay was good, as always, as was Mitch Wishnowsky and Boobie Hobbs, but there are some serious black eyes on the performance. First of all, the long snapping to Mitch on a couple of punts were poor, namely near the end of the 1st half when it hit one of the blockers and turned into a turnover. Secondly, on the onside kick that Arizona recovered that game them more life than they should have had. Special team gaffs can be so glaring and painful, and those two for Utah could have cost them against a better opponent.
How would you grade them out?