“Not a lot of positives in that game for us. That’s as thoroughly and as soundly as we’ve been beaten in a long time,” Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham said in his opening postgame remarks Saturday evening.
There’s not a whole lot of nuance needed there.
The Utes were methodically dismantled by Oregon, 35-6, at Rice-Eccles Stadium in a marquee Pac-12 matchup that quickly became a mismatch.
Whittingham didn’t sugarcoat anything during his 8.5-minute postgame media session.
“We really didn’t get much done in any phase of the game. The two things that we were emphasizing: Win the line of scrimmage, and win the turnover battle — we didn’t do either of those,” he said. “… They took it to us today, and so we’ve got to regroup, get back in the film room on Monday, figure out what our deficiencies were — which, there appeared to be a lot.”
It wasn’t coming from a place of meanness or anger, there just wasn’t any way to get around how thoroughly Utah was decimated.
In that respect, the coach said there was no point yelling at anyone about the blowout.
“You don’t want to go in and berate your team and browbeat them — what happened out there was enough,” Whittingham said.
He did, at points, try to cast a hopeful tone.
Whittingham noted that the Utes’ locker room is populated by hard-working and high-character guys who take pride in what they do, and would resolve to learn from the loss and come back better.
“Sometimes you get knocked on your butt in life and you’ve got to pick yourself up and come back and regroup and just figure things out and get things going,” he said. “… We’ve still got a lot of football left.”
Still, it was hard to see too much silver lining in the wake of such a result.
Asked if Oregon was the best team they’ve faced this season, quarterback Bryson Barnes, receiver Devaughn Vele, and linebacker Karene Reid all looked at one another to see who wanted to take that one.
Vele finally replied, and was succinct and blunt.
“I think the score says it was,” he said simply.
Here’s a look into a few of the things that went so wrong on Saturday.
Lack of physicality
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes quarterback Bryson Barnes (16) is taken down by the Oregon defense as the Utah Utes host the Oregon Ducks, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023.
Asked postgame about the team’s deficiencies, Barnes, Vele, and Reid were all reluctant to get into specifics, generally choosing to offer up some variation upon, “We’ll watch the film Monday and we’ll see.”
There were sporadic attempts at answers, though, with Reid twice mentioning Oregon’s fast offensive tempo.
Whittingham, however, was not in agreement.
“It wasn’t really the tempo that did us in, it was our physicality not matching their physicality,” he said. “… [It was] not winning the line of scrimmage, them being more physical. We very rarely get out-physicaled, but today we got out-physicaled. If you had to say what was the biggest single problem in the entire game, that was it.”
It was apparent on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, in the first half, the Utes had 18 rushes for 28 yards — 1.6 per carry. In the second half, they ran it 18 more times and this time gained 71 yards — which is still only 3.9 per carry.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes receiver Money Parks (10) is tacked in front of the Oregon bench, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023.
Meanwhile, Barnes seemed to be constantly under siege, and wound up being sacked twice, while the Utes were dealt six tackles for loss overall.
Defensively, it was not any better.
Utah’s defensive line wasn’t able to generate any kind of pressure on Bo Nix, finishing the game without a sack. Star defensive end Jonah Elliss not only didn’t get home on the QB, he didn’t even record a single tackle in the game.
Really, the only memorable moments from Utah’s defensive line were defensive tackle Junior Tafuna forcing a fumble and recovering it on a run play, and defensive end Connor O’Toole getting Utah’s lone TFL.
“Just credit to their O-line. [But] I think we could have been more aggressive,” said Reid. “The scheme was there, but [we’ve] just got to be more aggressive.”
The offense dries up again
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes safety Sione Vaki (28) tries to change direction as the Utah Utes host the Oregon Ducks, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023.
For much of the season, Utah’s offense has been devoid of much big-play ability.
That seemed to change in the wins against Cal and USC, though, with the inclusion of safety Sione Vaki on the other side of the ball as a running back and wildcat QB. He racked up yardage and touchdowns in both of those games.
But against Oregon, he was a nonfactor.
He rushed the ball five times for 11 yards. He did not have a reception. Actually, he did still manage to be a factor in the passing game in one regard, as he and Barnes had a miscommunication on one play, Vaki unexpectedly cut his route short, Barnes threw the ball to where Vaki was supposed to be, and the pass was intercepted.
It wasn’t just Vaki who couldn’t get anything going, though.
Whether it was the O-line getting dominated or just sloppy execution, Utah totaled only 241 yards of offense, including only 136 passing. And Vele had 80 of those yards. No other receiver had more than 24.
“They were doing a good job of covering things and getting to the quarterback,” said Barnes.
Whittingham gave the Ducks their flowers, but also intimated his own team didn’t do enough.
“Just a mystery, as good as we played last week and as many plays we made last week, to not be able to get much of anything going this week,” he said. “And again, a lot of that is Oregon. I don’t want to diminish what they did today at all, because the score wasn’t indicative. The game was a mismatch.”
Ducks dominate the defense
Utes coaches and players said in the lead-up to the game that Oregon’s offense was extremely well-balanced and would pose myriad problems.
And they were correct.
Nix didn’t have the most prolific game, but that’s because the game was so out of hand midway through the third quarter. His efficiency did stand out to Whittingham, though, as the coach called him “lights out” and “an extremely accurate thrower.” Nix finished 24 of 31 for 248 yards.
Oregon’s ground game was equally effective, with Bucky Irving providing power and speed, gaining 83 yards on 14 carries. The Ducks collectively rushed 27 times for 142 yards — an impressive 5.3 per carry.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Muss cheer on the team at the start of their game against the Oregon Ducks, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023.
Again, though, Utah helped Oregon out a bit in racking up yardage.
“Probably our poorest tackling performance of the season. I can’t say that for certain until I watch the tape, [but] my guess is that’s what it’s gonna turn out to be,” said Whittingham. “We’ve been an excellent tackling team up until this week — we only missed single-digit tackles in, I think, all but one of our games this year.”
The Ducks were running free for big plays all game, while conversely keeping Utah’s playmakers in front of them.
Of Oregon’s 248 passing yards, 129 came after the catch (52.0%). The Utes, on the other hand, saw just 40 of their 142 passing yards come after the catch (28.2%).
