Utah 48, USU 6
In their 104th meeting, No. 14 Utah handed the Utah State football team a 48-6 loss Saturday- its worse defeat since 2001 when it fell to Fresno State 70-21.
The U reeled off 41 unanswered points until USU finally scored with seven minutes left in the third quarter, bringing the game to 41-6 as the Aggies were unable to convert a two-point try.
“The University of Utah is the best team we would play all year,” Aggies head coach Mick Dennehy said. “[We were unable] to move the ball in the first half when we had bad field position – to get it out of some holes and [we were unable] to tackle their backs when we had to. We had chances to make plays that we just didn’t make. They made some pretty good plays.”
USU has now lost seven straight games to Utah and has lost 14 straight games to ranked teams.
The six points that Utah State scored were the fewest points scored in a game by an Aggie team since the Utah game in 2002, when the Ags lost 23-3.
USU only accumulated 295 yards of total offense while Utah gained 204 yards through the air and 237 yards on the ground for a total of 441 yards.
“It’ll help not playing Utah and Alabama,” Dennehy said. “It all boils down to, if we’ve got to drop back and throw the ball every single down in order to get first downs and in order to move the ball, we’re going to struggle like crazy.”
After another nine-play, 41-yard scoring drive for the Utes, USU running back Chris Forbes fumbled on his own 28-yard line and was recovered by Ute Ryan Smith on the USU 15-yard line. Smith returned the ball to the 11-yard line before being brought down by Tony Pennyman.
Utah then scored in 40 seconds on two plays – a 4-yard run to the 7-yard line and a 7-yard scramble by quarterback Alex Smith. The point after attempt was failed putting Utah up 20-0 before the end of the first quarter.
Utah State rushed for 48 yards on 35 attempts with Forbes, their starting tailback, only gaining 9 yards on nine attempts and Peter Shields only gaining 20 yards on eight attempts.
“You get a little bit frustrated obviously in games like this,” Dennehy said. “I think that they were better up front than us and that was pretty obvious. It’s a huge, huge game – a lot of pressure on a freshman – and I think early in the game it affected [Forbes] a little.”
The Utes’ first possession ended up in an eight-play, 49-yard scoring drive that had no third downs and only two plays that didn’t produce positive yardage.
The Aggie defense forced the Utes to punt on their second possession but a punt from Matt Kovacevich pinned the Aggies on their own 6-yard line.
“We dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t get past the 20 or 30,” Travis Cox said. “After that we felt like we moved the ball all right. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to their defense and when you’re struggling on offense, like we are, it’s hard to get it turned around when you’re playing a defense like they have.”
The only scoring chance the Aggies had in the first half came at the beginning of the second quarter. USU started on its own 23-yard line and drove 76 yards down to the Utah 1-yard line a Pace Jorgensen false start pushed the Aggies back to the 6-yard line.
Instead of trying a field goal, the Ags tried going for the touchdown, but Cox’s pass was tipped and intercepted by Jonathan Fanene and returned 76 yards for another Ute touchdown – extending the lead to 27 points.
“We felt like at the point in time that a field goal was not going to make a difference,” Dennehy said. “We took our shots, we had our chances to get some points on the board during the first half and when you’ve got to do everything so right and you turn the ball over you’re going to struggle and that hurt us tonight.”
Saturday was the third-straight game that Cox has thrown multiple interceptions but only the fourth multiple-interception game of his career.
Near the end of the game, Cox was pulled in favor of Leon Jackson and Matt Crivello. The two back-ups alternated snaps. Jackson threw five-for-seven for 52 yards and Crivello completed three passes for 32 yards.
“Right now we would have a difficult decision, I think, in terms of who our number two guy would be,” Dennehy said. “We feel like we need to play both of them in the event that Travis goes down or whatever. I thought both of them did a reasonably good job. I was particularly impressed with Leon. I thought he did an outstanding job.”
A total of six quarterbacks took snaps in this game. Cox, Jackson and Crivello for Utah State and Alex Smith, Brian Johnson and Fano Tagovaila for Utah.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu