Utah football coach Ron McBride laid a big part of the blame for his offensive line's nine false starts and an illegal-procedure penalty Saturday night on a Hawaii tactic McBride says is illegal, but the Ute big men will spend some time in practices this week running "10-and-ins."
That means the offensive line will have to do 10 plays perfectly. For each imperfection, they do two more. It can add up quickly to a lot of work.McBride and his staff will probably find ways to make other players uncomfortable this week, too. Four fumbles - three lost, two leading directly to 10 Hawaii points, a tight end's poor block that allowed Hawaii to hit quarterback Jonathan Cross-white as he threw what became an interception and a high PAT snap that cost an important point were just a few of Utah's goofs.
However, "When we got tested in the fourth quarter," McBride observes, noting that with all those errors the Utes probably should have lost, "the whole team responded.
"Our backs were to the wall, the game was in doubt, and they found a way to win. Maybe that was good for this team," said McBride, not feeling as happy as a 3-0 coach should.
Utah had a 20-0 halftime lead, gave up 21 points and four straight Hawaii scores in a six-minute period of the third quarter, then kicked a field goal with :12 left in the third and scored a fourth-quarter TD to win the WAC opener 30-21 Saturday in Rice-Eccles Stadium. Utah had been favored by 24 points to give Hawaii its 21st straight WAC road loss.
But 11 O-line penalties in a 12-penalty game added up to a lot of trouble. The line jumped the gun three times on one drive in the second quarter, and the drive ended with running back Mike Anderson losing the first of his several fumbles. No harm came on that possession. The defense stepped up, as it would all night.
The O-line jumped twice on Utah's first series of the second half, giving Hawaii the chance to kick a field goal for its first points of the game, and once on Utah's second drive, which ended with the bad center-quarterback exchange on a QB sneak from the Hawaii 1-yard line that was returned 97 yards for a Rainbow TD.
"Geez, Louise, that's a ridiculous scenario," McBride said of the fumble and Hawaii TD. "I've never had that happen. Just like I never lost a quarterback (to a practice injury -Darnell Arceneaux broke a finger Tuesday in practice)," said McBride. "That gives me two minuses in three or four days."
The O-line jumped again once each on Utah's first three possessions of the fourth quarter.
"They were jamming our signals at the line of scrimmage, and that caused us problems. They were calling out `move, set, hike,' and they used our cadence. They can't do that. That's illegal," said McBride, who says he complained to the officiating crew "15 times."
"Their defense was calling out our cadence after I was," said Crosswhite, "and that really threw us off, resulting in the motion penalties."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Utah flashback
Score: Utah 30, Hawaii 21
Record: 3-0 overall, 1-0 WAC
Offense: Despite the offense's bumbling, Jonathan Crosswhite's first QB start of '98 went reasonably well (17-for-28-255, 2 TDs, 1 int., 10-for-18 third-down conversions and a win). Receivers did well. Grade: C+
Defense: Had three sacks and held Hawaii to 63 yards rushing, 3-for-17 on third-down conversions, 11 first downs, 15 pass completions in 36 tries. A few big-yard passes were the only Ute flaw. Grade: A
Special teams: Chris Hunter averaged 49.6 yards a punt, Daniel Jones made 19 yards per punt return and 14 per kickoff return, and Ryan Kaneshiro's only missed kick was a high snap. Grade: B+