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Jason Fanaika was breathless on the sideline, mobbed by teammates as he looked up in vain to scour the sea of black shirts for his wife.
She eluded him, but Nelson Agholor's tipped pass from Cody Kessler did not, nor did the six ball-carriers he tackled in his second game at linebacker since switching from defensive end to fill a vacancy.
"Just thinking back to where I've come from, all the different changes that I've had to go through in my life, and just thinking about the interception — obviously, it was huge for me."
That's a common thread for this Utah defense.
Players like junior linebacker Gionni Paul, who like Fanaika spent last season the scout team, and sophomore cornerback Dominique Hatfield, who was a wide receiver in fall but stepped up to offset the loss of Reginald Porter, and many others — practically everywhere you look on Utah's defense, there's a story about survival and adaptation.
Saturday night, in a 24-21 victory that ensured Utah will go to a bowl game for the first time in three years, that's exactly what the Utes did.
Survive, and adapt.
They held USC to less yards in the second half (158) than they did in the first (206), but there was more to it than that. Kessler was 13-of-16 at halftime, having had all day to throw and not a scratch on him.
Utah's defense, which entered the game leading the nation in sacks, decided it had enough during the intermission.
"We just wanted to come out and establish who we are, who we've been all season," Fanaika said. "Unfortunately in the first half, it didn't go too well for us, so we wanted to come out and let everybody know who we were. Definitely, the D-line, they stepped it up, but that's obviously expected from the guys who are on the front."
Whittingham said after the game that the defense's first-half struggles were due to USC's physical prowess up front, a lack of tight coverage, and Kessler being "an NFL quarterback. You will see him playing on Sundays for a long time, along with two or three of his receivers."
The Utes weathered the absence of senior free safety Tevin Carter by starting senior cornerback Eric Rowe in his place. At halftime, Whittingham said, coaches decided to move Rowe back to corner and to play true freshman Marcus Williams at safety — and then, when Rowe left the game with an apparently minor leg problem, they dug even deeper into the bench.
But Utah began to act like a team that had possibly the nation's best pass rush through its first six games, and prompted Fanaika's interception and 1.5 sacks from Hunter Dimick — including a half-sack he shared with senior Nate Orchard to seal the victory and send fans rushing jumping onto the field.
Such was Kyle Whittingham's faith in his defense that on the penultimate Utah drive, he opted to take a delay of game penalty to set up a punt on fourth-and-six at USC's 40-yard line.
The Trojan offense responded with a 5-minute drive, but on third-and-2 Kessler's pass fell incomplete, and on fourth-and-2, Nelson Agholor ran out of bounds on a pitch play.
Backs to the wall, Utah's defense yet again gave their offense a puncher's chance.
— Matthew Piper
Twitter: @matthew_piper