Long before the University of Utah arrived at Rice Stadium to meet Wyoming Saturday afternoon, the Utes received a pep talk at their hotel from a legend. Roy Jefferson, a 1964 All-American for Utah who went on to an All-Pro career with the Washington Redskins, urged the Utes to take pride in their team and to lay the foundation for future Utah teams.
Heaven knows it wasn't an easy demand, not with the recent turn of events, but by the time the Utes were finished with Wyoming Saturday they were holding their heads high once again. That's what a 38-7 victory will do for you.The Utes were trailing 7-5 in the waning seconds of the first half when nickelback Jeff Kirkman, who was playing in place of the injured Reggie Alston, returned an interception for a touchdown. The game was never close again.
Frank Dolce, returning to form for the first time in weeks, passed for 298 yards and two touchdowns, and the defense held Wyoming to 240 yards and a single touchdown - its lowest scoring output of the season.
For the record, the victory clinched back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since the 1984-85 seasons and marked the first time in two decades that a single Ute coach has claimed consecutive winning seasons.
"I feel good," said Ute coach Ron McBride. "These wins are hard to come by."
He should know. The Utes had lost three of their last four games, including a 41-15 drubbing in Fresno last week. The Cowboys, on the other hand, had just upset San Diego State. The Utes, however, are nothing if not an unpredictable, weird team. They gave UTEP its only win of the season. They gave Hawaii its only loss. They lost to New Mexico, but they whipped Oregon State and Air Force. Go figure.
No wonder only 25,080 fans turned out in Rice Stadium on Saturday, leaving a gaping hole in the student section. Among those in attendance were 213 former Ute football players - some of them dating back to 1930 - who had been invited to town this weekend to help celebrate the school's 100th football season. For a while on Saturday it seemed there would be nothing to celebrate.
All season long, defensive coordinator Fred Whittingham has been trying to teach his team the art of zone defense. The Utes played zone again on Saturday, but with a new wrinkle. They played Wyoming's brilliant wide receiver, Ryan Yarborough, with man-to-man, double-coverage, with the corner on the short underneath stuff and the free safety playing him deep.
"He had caught 70 balls," said Whittingham. "We wanted to stop him."
So what happens? On the third play of the game, Yarborough burns them. The Utes called an audible, but the cornerback didn't hear it and blew the coverage. Yarborough, taking a short pass in the flat, made a quick inside move, broke outside past two defenders and then turned sharply up the sideline for a 74-yard touchdown play.
"I was thinking suicide," said Whittingham. "We worked all week on that formation and that pattern."
But the Utes played flawless defense the rest of the day. They intercepted four passes, they scored eight points on a safety and an interception, they set up two field goals with interceptions, and they collected four sacks, three of them by tackle Blaine Berger. The Utes so thoroughly disrupted Wyoming's 13th-ranked pass attack that the Cowboys went through three quarterbacks trying to right themselves. They managed to complete just 16 of 35 passes for 217 yards.
"We've been trying to get them to play zone like this all year, and they finally did," said Whittingham. "They finally understand it."
On the second series of the game, Yarborough got hung up in traffic and never showed up at midfield, which is where quarterback Joe Hughes threw the pass. Kareem Leary picked off the pass at midfield and returned it to the 30, setting up a 33-yard Chris Yergensen field goal. Early in the second quarter, the Cowboys pinned themselves against their own goal line, thanks to clipping and delay of game penalties. On second down Dwight Driver ran to the left side of the line where he was met by linebacker Preston Christensen. The tackle jarred the ball loose and Hughes fell on it in the end zone for a safety, cutting Wyoming's lead to 7-5.
With 46 seconds left in the half, Hughes made the day's worst mistake. On first down from his own 31-yard line, he tried to force a pass to Yarborough, who was surrounded by red jerseys. One of them was Kirkman, who intercepted the pass and ran 43 yards for a touchdown and an 11-7 halftime lead.
"I dropped into a zone, and I don't think he saw me," said Kirkman. "He threw it right to me."
"The defense really kept us in the game in the first half until the offense finally woke up in the second half," said Dolce.
The Ute offense had been in a slump for a month, averaging just 13 points in four outings. They scored just three points in the first half on Saturday - and then 27 points in the second half.
Dolce completed 27 of 40 passes, seven of them to Pierre Jones, six to Henry Lusk and five to Sean Williams.
The slump ended with the first possession of the second half. Dolce completed passes of 20 and nine yards to Sean Williams and then, just as the rush was taking him to the turf, he unloaded a soft pass into the end zone, which Lusk managed to catch between two defenders.
Moments later, Hughes forced another pass in double coverage, and Sharrieff Shah returned the interception to the 15-yard line, setting up a 35-yard Yergensen field goal. Score: 21-7.
A short time later, the Ute offense were given the ball at their own two-yard line. Eleven plays later they scored a touchdown. Dolce completed passes of 28 and 20 yards to Keith and Sean Williams, respectively, and then threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to tight end Curt Haws.
The rout was on. Yergensen kicked a 23-yard field goal, Leary intercepted his second pass of the game, Keith Williams scored on a 1-yard run and the Utes had their sixth victory in 10 games this season.
"Get to the training room tomorrow," McBride told his team in the locker room afterward. "We start on BYU on Monday."
BYU and Utah will end the regular season next Saturday in Rice Stadium with their annual grand finale. BYU, having won six of its last seven games, will probably be rated the favorite, but, as Wyoming discovered Saturday, never count out the Utes.