Pasadena, Calif. • Keaton Bills is willing to admit that there was a time this season when he and his University of Utah teammates didn’t believe they would get to a second straight Rose Bowl.
The Utes’ fourth-year sophomore left guard points to Nov. 19 and an uncharacteristically poor 20-17 loss at the University of Oregon. At that point, Utah no longer controlled its own destiny in reaching the Pac-12 championship game or the Rose Bowl after that.
“There was a point in there we didn’t think we would be able to come back here, but the fact that we are back here, it’s a testament to how hard the guys have worked,” Bills said on Saturday morning during Rose Bowl media day. “After that Oregon loss, we thought we blew our chance — but we kept working hard, we didn’t put our heads down, and we’re here now.”
There were so many things that needed to go right for the Utes after that.
To get to the conference title game, the Utes needed to win at Colorado on Nov, 26, plus have three other Pac-12 results break their way that weekend. Utah blew out the Buffaloes in Boulder, and as luck would have it, Bills and his teammates got all three of the outside results they needed to reach the title game.
The Utes routed USC in the Pac-12 championship, 47-24, and are set for their second straight Rose Bowl on Monday afternoon at the iconic 92,000-seat stadium against Penn State (3 p.m., ESPN).
“It’s been a great testament to how resilient this team could be,” Bills said. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, and during those down times, you never saw arguments, you never saw people pointing fingers, people getting in arguments with each other. We just knew we needed to do this together and it was about how we can move forward together.”
As Bills alluded to, this Utah season may be concluding in college football’s most famous bowl game, but it was not without its difficulties along the way.
Ranked No. 7 in the Associated Press Top 25 to open the season, and with visions of advancing to the program’s first College Football Playoff in their minds, the Utes lost at Florida, 29-26, in what was billed as the most important season-opener in the history of the program. The game ended with quarterback Cam Rising getting intercepted in the end zone in the closing seconds after he had moved the Utes’ offense inside the Gators’ 10-yard line.
That loss, an Oct. 8 defeat at UCLA, and the aforementioned loss at Oregon marked the lows, but there were certainly highs.
Rising’s 475-yard, five-touchdown tour de force vs. USC on Oct. 15 at a shaking Rice-Eccles Stadium, his MVP performance in the Pac-12 championship game against the Trojans, Clark Phillips III’s three-interception performance in an Oct. 1 home rout of Oregon State, which wound up winning 10 games.
“It’s been an interesting ride to say the least,” longtime Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham said. “We had some setbacks right at the onset of the season, not playing very well down in Florida, then the UCLA game here and the Oregon game. Those were the negatives, but the positives were that our team responded virtually every single time our backs were against the wall. We were able to get things done. I’m proud of the way they handled adversity. They showed a great deal of resiliency, and they just kept fighting, just kept playing.”
None of this speaks to the number of injuries and personnel issues Utah has endured along the way.
Rising has been playing with an injury to his left knee since the middle of October, missing a critical road game at Washington State on Oct. 27. With backup quarterback Bryson Barnes starting in place of Rising, the Utes survived The Palouse, 21-17.
One All-Pac-12 tight end, Brant Kuithe, was lost for the season to a torn right ACL at the end of September. Utah’s other All-Pac-12 tight end, Dalton Kincaid, has been banged up in some form or fashion since the end of October and will miss the Rose Bowl because of it.
Personal issues, including the death of his aunt in September, stalled what was supposed to be a big season for running back Tavion Thomas, who announced on Nov. 25 that he was ending his college career and beginning preparations for the NFL Draft.
One defensive end, Van Fillinger, was lost for the season on Nov. 7 with what Whittingham called a lower-body injury. A second defensive end, All-Pac-12 selection Jonah Elliss has been injured for most of the last six weeks, and while he did play in the Pac-12 championship game, his availability for the Rose Bowl is in major doubt.
Through it all, Utah ultimately got where it wanted to go, even if the road there included some momentary doubt.
“It’s been an up-and-down season, and just a next-up situation the whole time for this team,” Rising said. “Every guy has stood up to the task, it’s been great, and I’m happy to be here. We had a few pieces fall our way to get here, so it’s been one hell of a ride.”
Added Utes cornerbacks coach Sharrieff Shah: “I can only say it’s been so worthwhile. That is indicative of how things start off at Utah. It may start off poor, end up beautiful. It may start off beautiful, and work through some travails in order to get to the other side. But what you’ve seen through the kids is consistent belief, and an unwavering, uncompromising level of dedication that you love. When we get this level of accomplishment, it feels like it was supposed to happen, because that’s what we all believed.”