Throughout the 2022 season, the Utah Utes had no choice but to make adversity not a foe, but a friend. They were forced into the uncomfortable arrangement, if not welcoming it, at least living with it.
Their reward for successfully doing so — the 2023 Rose Bowl — required nothing less than the same association/accommodation.
Not only did they face Penn State without three of their best players — Dalton Kincaid, Brant Kuithe and Clark Phillips, the Utes, smack dab in the heart of a heavy battle with the Nittany Lions, lost their leader.
And they lost the game, 35-21.
It really came down to just that — along with a couple of blown defensive assignments on big plays — and that combination was simply too much to overcome.
The plays were an 87-yard touchdown run by Penn State’s Nicholas Singleton and an 88-yard touchdown throw by Lions quarterback Sean Clifford.
“We got cut out of a gap on the big run,” Kyle Whittingham said. “… The long pass was a double move … safety got too aggressive.”
He added the obvious: “Those two plays were very damaging.”
Not as damaging as, at a critical point in the third quarter, the loss to injury of quarterback Cam Rising.
That was the huge blow, the moment of betrayal, when adversity clearly was no friend of the Utes.
Even though Rising had struggled up to that juncture, his forced departure was frustrating, a pivotal moment. A moment when the double-crossing friend — You Know What — could take a flying leap, could do anatomically impossible things to itself.
“We lost some of our mojo,” Whittingham said, calling what followed a “drop-off.”
He also said: “The injury to Cam, it doesn’t look good. It breaks my heart. He’s such a warrior, such a competitor.”
It also broke Utah’s back, or at least the Utes’ chances of winning.
Midway through the third quarter, the Utes having just given up the aforementioned 87-yard touchdown run, trailing now by seven, their pass game lurching, veteran quarterback Rising knew his offense desperately needed to regain some momentum. The Utes had tied the score at 14 at the half, had battled fiercely and physically through the first two quarters.
But now, they needed a boost.
Rising took off running to pick up a long first down, barreling into a smattering of Penn State defenders and got dropped — hard. He stood up and then tumbled back down, having hurt the same left knee that had caused him so much trouble through the back half of the season.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez | AP) Utah quarterback Cameron Rising (7) is helped off the field during the second half in the Rose Bowl NCAA college football game against Penn State Monday, Jan. 2, 2023, in Pasadena, Calif.
If you were there or watched, you saw what happened. He was helped into the medical tent, he left the tent, gingerly walking to the locker room, his day done.
Utah was done, too.
Backup quarterback Bryson Barnes came on in relief. same as he did a year ago in the same Rose Bowl, and … let’s just say it like this: It didn’t go well.
It was a lot to ask of the relatively inexperienced quarterback to either embrace this kind of adversity or to kick it aside. With him flailing about — throwing interceptions, missing receivers, getting sacked, the attack faltering, all around, the rest of the Utes collapsed alongside.
That defense — missing Phillips — could not contain the other guys’ veteran leader, Clifford, who went on to shred Utah’s secondary. His 88-yard touchdown pass was the longest scoring throw in Rose Bowl history.
All told, Clifford threw for 279 yards and two TDs.
Singleton rolled for 120 rushing yards and two scores, averaging 17 yards a carry.
It was troubling to see Rising, as Whittingham said, one of the toughest Ute competitors ever, dressed out in sweats, his knee braced, his face and his emotion darkly hooded, standing helplessly on the sideline, watching as his team was taken apart, piece by piece. Yeah, he was hurt in last year’s Rose Bowl, too, and the Utes yielded a close loss to Ohio State.
But this was different.
Here, the Utes got crushed, unable to gather themselves, unable to move the ball, unable even to threaten to move the ball until it was too late, unable to finish the season with the same verve and fight with which they had played for the greater part of it.
As the Nittany Lions properly celebrated their success, and, ultimately, their victory, the Utes were left to suffer whatever buffetings adversity wanted to inflict.
The supposed friend turned its back on them, then, taking its revenge, leaving them hurt and exposed and defeated at a vulnerable moment.
A last-minute Utah touchdown only demonstrated that it wouldn’t up and quit, regardless of its circumstances.
Apropos.
Where does Utah football go from here?
Well. The Utes have tasted sweetness in the Sugar Bowl. They’ve danced to victory in the Fiesta Bowl. They’ve run off a whole string of wins in bowls from the Emerald to the Armed Forces to the Poinsettia to the Sun to the Vegas to the Foster Farms to the Heart of Dallas. They’ve won championships.
The Rose just wasn’t theirs to have. Not last year, not now.
Whittingham said he wasn’t sure what form the Rose Bowl would take in the future, but he said the Utes would look forward to more wins, more championships, more bowls, whichever ones for which they would qualify, moving forward. He also mentioned the expanded College Football Playoff.
That’s what Utah could play for in the seasons ahead.
Rising — the coach said he hopes — will heal up and be back with the Utes.
Whittingham sounded less than sure on that. But two things of which he was certain:
1. “[This was a] disappointing loss.”
2. “I love the team we have coming back next year.”
(Meg Oliphant | Special to The Tribune) Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham looks on from the sideline during the third quarter against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Rose Bowl Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023 in Pasadena, Calif.
