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Rams and Utes mix it up in Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City, UT (Sports Network) - Tied for the nation's second-longest winning streak, the 14th-ranked Utah Utes entertain the Colorado State Rams in Mountain West Conference action this weekend at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.

The Utes, who have won eight straight games and are currently tied with Penn State and Texas Tech behind only conference foe BYU (16 games), haven't gone down to defeat since the aforementioned Cougars turned the trick in a 17-10 decision last season. This year Utah, already eligible for a bowl game, has won by double digits in all but three outings. Last Saturday, the team enjoyed yet another blowout victory against Wyoming, this time on the road in Laramie, by a score of 40-7 to keep the perfect season alive.

Meanwhile, the Rams have alternated wins and losses over the last four games and are now 3-3 on the season and 1-1 in conference. Although the squad failed to make it into the win column last weekend, it fought extremely hard against one of the toughest defensive programs in the nation in a 13-7 setback to TCU at home in Fort Collins. While a win over the Horned Frogs would have been considered an upset, CSU head coach Steve Fairchild still has high expectations for his programs. "We've got a lot invested in this but we're at the halfway point, we're 3-3, and we'd like to be a lot better than that. There's still a lot of football left and a lot of attainable goals out there for us."

Last year Utah dominated CSU in a 27-3 decision, boosting the team's advantage in the all-time series to 52-22-2. In addition to beating the Rams in four straight meetings, the Utes are an impressive 30-8-2 in Salt Lake City during the relationship.

Gartrell Johnson made his way into the end zone on a four-yard run at the 10:47 mark of the first quarter, but that was the end of the good news for the CSU offense as it failed to make any noise the rest of the way last weekend. Johnson ended up carrying the ball 16 times, but came away with a mere 30 yards, which means the team as a whole produced only 11 net yards on the ground. Quarterback Billy Farris had a couple of balls dropped that could have gone for touchdowns and while those were not his fault, his coach still opted to put in backup Klay Kubiak in the third quarter. The young signal-caller converted 12-of-24 for 121 yards, but was picked off once and sacked five times. Coach Fairchild has Farris again listed as the starter on the depth chart this week, but he's already stated that he's not afraid to pull the trigger and go with Kubiak if Farris is not getting the job done to his satisfaction.

Perhaps more important than the QB performance is what happens with Johnson on the ground. After six games Johnson has accounted for 521 of the team's 664 yards and six of their eight TD runs. Not to be overlooked is receiver Rashaun Greer who has gained 570 yards on 33 grabs, both of which are easily team highs.

The Colorado State defense did well to limit the Horned Frogs to only 317 yards of offense in Fort Collins last week, but even so the group could have made a much bigger splash had it capitalized on a number of golden opportunities. TCU was charged with five fumbles in the contest, yet only one of those miscues was recovered by the Rams. Tommie Hill came up with that recovery and also logged a blocked kick during the game. Mychal Sisson's 11 tackles were the game-high on both sides, while Mike Pagnotta recorded the only sack and interception for the Rams in the contest.

Pagnotta, who has twice as many passes defended (seven) than anyone else on the team, is also first in tackles at the moment with 42 and has both two interceptions and a couple of fumble recoveries. Despite just 17 total stops in his six games, Hill leads the group with five tackles for loss and three sacks. Unfortunately, as well as Hill and Pagnotta have both played thus far, the defense is still having difficulty getting a strong push at the line of scrimmage and is last in the MWC in both sacks (1.0) and TFLs (3.5) per game, ranking them 106th and 118th in the nation, respectively, this week.

Matt Asiata scored on the ground and through the air last Saturday to help lead the Utes to yet another win, this time over a hapless Wyoming squad. Asiata carried the ball 11 times for 37 yards and had just the single reception for 13 yards and a TD. Quarterback Brian Johnson converted 10-of-19 passes for 110 yards and a score, surviving three sacks along the way. Louie Sakoda continued to be a valuable part of the group with two successful field goals (50 and 39 yards) and also averaged better than 40 yards on nine punts, which four of those dropping inside the 20-yard line.

With a perfect record thus far one would think that little needs improvement on the Utes, but head coach Kyle Whittingham sees it differently. "We are doing a good job in a lot of areas but we are always looking to get better. We have a lot of positive things going on, but we have lacked rhythm." Asiata has been a tremendous factor in almost every aspect of the offense for the Utes, taking direct snaps, catching balls out of the backfield and having also thrown a touchdown, which means Johnson doesn't have to do all of the heavy lifting himself. Not only is Asiata a valuable piece of the puzzle, fellow running back Darrell Mack has managed to eat up yardage as well (378), making it easier to see how this group averages 37.6 ypg (18th nationally).

Wyoming has been struggling to find consistency at the quarterback position this season, so the team opted to try out a rushing attack against the Utes and it worked to a certain degree. The Pokes rolled up 184 yards on 44 attempts, but failed to make it into the end zone. From a pass defense perspective, Utah was more than ready with allowing just 10 completions and picked off three passes during the course of the contest.

"The defense has been a very consistent phase of our game each week," almost sounded like a slight against the Utah offense coming from coach Whittingham during his Monday press conference. However, the truth is that the defense for the Utes has been tough to combat, limiting opponents to a mere 82.4 ypg on the ground to place second in the conference and eighth in the nation this week. Add to that a pass defense that has surrendered only 176.7 ypg and it becomes rather clear how this group is now second in the MWC and seventh in the country in total defense (259.1 ypg). A huge part of that effort is brought by Paul Kruger game in and a game out. Kruger is third on the team with his 34 tackles, yet he's first by far with 12.5 TFLs and has five and a half sacks to rank third in the Mountain West.

10/15/2008 11:02:48 AM

 

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