Here’s a shoutout to the big angry dudes.
It’s somehow satisfying that in a modern age of nuanced and newfangled college football, the big rivalry game in the season opener for Utah and BYU on Thursday night will come down to the most primitive, the most basic of football particulars — the biggest men on the field, the ones too often referred to as big uglies, and the opportunities they create for themselves and destroy for the other guys.
The best collective mass of humanity for the Utes is their defensive line.
The best collective mass for the Cougars is their offensive line.
What gives when the two masses meet is what matters most.
It’s not everything, but it’s more than just something.
That may not throw a charge into Joe and Jill Sixpack, the people who only watch and care about what the quarterbacks and the running backs and the receivers do, but for anybody who’s spent a lot of time around football it is a thrill a minute, watching what these extraordinarily large Homo sapiens who muddy themselves and hammer their opponents in the dark reaches do.
That is glorious.
That is key to so much of what happens.
That is central to the outcome of this game.
There is that other thing, too, what Utah’s offensive line does against BYU’s defensive front, and that will be hugely important, as well.
But the flip side along the line of scrimmage, where a monumental battle will rage, when the Cougars have the ball and when the Utes are trying to take it away, that skirmish features six or seven future NFL draft picks. That place of violence will highlight one of the greatest matchups in the history of the Utah-BYU rivalry.
It’s that good.
On the one hand, in the Ute corner, wearing the crimson trunks, weighing in at a combined 933 pounds, you have Leki Fotu, Bradlee Anae and John Penisini. And they have additional friends. A lot of friends. And that could be a problem for the other corner, in the blue trunks, weighing in at 905 pounds, you have James Empey, Tristen Hoge and Brady Christensen. And they have friends, too. Quite a few.
“We have very good players up front,” Kyle Whittingham says. “Those three seniors in particular. And then, Maxs Tupai and Mika Tafua are really good, the two underclassmen.”
Already, Anae, Fotu and Penisini could have gone pro, each being considered high-to-midrange picks in the last NFL Draft. They decided to return, considering what they accomplished on the Pac-12’s second-best defense in 2018, as the league’s runner-up, insufficient.
“They all made the right decision coming back,” Whittingham says.
Certainly, it was the best decision for the Utes.
Whittingham, a head coach who has always been defensive-centric in his thinking and who has tutored and witnessed some great groups of athletes in the past, is fully aware that this collection of defensive talent could be his best ever. Even thinking that is … well, mind blowing. Every player on the Utes’ defensive line’s two-deep from last season has returned.
BYU offensive line coach Eric Mateos, though, says he believes the Cougars have depth of their own, going eight deep. That may be adding substantial elasticity to the truth, but … maybe not.
Rinse and repeat: Whoever triumphs in this zone of destruction where the monsters will end up black and blue and red all over, is a determining factor in who does the conquering.
If the BYU guys create space and time, clearing paths and a pocket, opening holes and building walls, Zach Wilson has a chance to dissect an extremely talented Utah defensive backfield.
“We know how important [Zach] is,” Empey tells The Salt Lake Tribune. “We are relying on him, and we are making sure we know what we are doing.”
That will be plain enough at either extreme — if Wilson stays clean or repeatedly gets popped.
“We have to be able to disrupt him,” says Whittingham.
Not only that, Ty’Son Williams has hope of reintroducing to the Cougars and the Utes a formidable BYU run game. It’s been a while since those last four words have been strung together in the same sentence.
Yeah, all of this is Football 101, abso-freaking-lutely rooted in the rudiments of the game.
If, conversely, that Utah defensive front, which will come in waves, not necessarily in blitz after blitz, but in rotations onto the field on account of the Utes’ impressive depth, wearing down however many of BYU’s bigs are trotted out, then the Cougars will have a significant problem, one they will not be able to overcome.
“We think we’re pretty good, up front,” Fotu says. And when he says it, he isn’t bragging. There is no swagger in his voice, no tone of thinly blanketed insecurity or weak boastfulness. Just matter-of-fact truth telling.
BYU’s offensive linemen believe they can tell their own truth in the rivalry game.
Whoever tells it best, most convincingly in that violent place, almost certainly wins.
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.
