Utes have nothing to complain about after a practically-perfect performance

SALT LAKE CITY — Usually, even after a big win, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham can think of something to complain about, whether it be turnovers, bad penalties or missed assignments.

Following Saturday night’s practically-perfect 35-0 victory over Cal, Whittingham could only think of one negative thing and he blamed it on himself. That was a late missed field goal by freshman Jadon Redding, which Whittingham said was his fault for “disturbing” him by telling him to run the clock down.

“That’s the one thing I can think of,” he said.

Otherwise, what was there to complain about?

Offense? How about 473 yards, split nearly evenly between passing — 242 yards on 15 of 22 completions — and rushing, 231 yards with Zack Moss breaking two more records with his 15th career 100-yard rushing game (115 yards) and 33rd career rushing touchdown.

Defense? How does 83 total yards sound, along with the first-ever shutout of a league opponent in the Pac-12 era. 

Turnovers? Zero, enough said. 

Special teams? While nothing really special happened and there was that missed field goal, nothing bad happened either.

Penalties? Just three for 25 yards, a far cry from the 16 for 120 yards they had in the loss to USC last month.

Everything is going well for the Utes right now.

Saturday’s win was their fourth since losing at the Coliseum last month. They’ve now held their last three opponents to a grand total of 10 points and an average of just 142 yards per game.

“Don’t get bored with winning, never get bored with winning.” — Utah coach Kyle Whittingham

The biggest concern coming into the game for the Utes was the health of quarterback Tyler Huntley, who was hobbling during the previous week’s win over Arizona State. Whittingham later said he didn’t practice much during the week and he wasn’t sure he’d be playing until pre-game warmups.

Turned out Huntley didn’t need to play in the second half after staking the Utes to a 28-0 halftime lead. Even in the first half, the Utes brought backup Jason Shelley in for obvious running situations as Shelley ran for one score and passed for another.

Most folks had figured if the Utes could score on the Bears, who hadn’t allowed more than 24 points in a game in over a year, going back 14 games, they would likely cruise to victory. That’s because the Cal offense came into the game ranked 116th out of 130 FBS teams in both scoring offense and total offense and were using a freshman quarterback who started the year on the third team.

After the Utes got a couple of early scores, it was obvious it was going to be a breeze for them.   

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Things were going well for the Utes even before Saturday’s late kickoff.

Top 10 teams Oklahoma (No. 5) and Auburn (No. 9) had already lost and another top 10 team, Notre Dame (No. 8) was on its way to a decisive loss to Michigan that ended up 45-14. That meant Utah, with a victory, would certainly be moving up at least three spots in the national polls from its No. 12 position and into the top 10.

For about 10 minutes, it looked Utah might be in for a bit of a challenge Saturday night.

Defensive-minded Cal held Utah without a first down on its first drive and forced a punt. Then the offensive-challenged Bears got a couple of first downs on their first drive and left a punt on the Ute 1-yard line.

But after those initial drives, it was total domination by the Utes.

Even off the field, nothing was going wrong. 

In the first half a woman caught three punts by former Ute all-American Tom Hackett in a promotion and won a thousand bucks.

In the second half, a student made the field goal to win free haircuts for everyone in the stadium with a ticket.

And despite those annoying two-and-a-half minute timeouts, the game clipped along at a good pace, finishing in under three hours, a remarkable feat for a modern football game, even if half of the stadium emptied long before the end of the game thanks to the lopsided game.

The fans might have left early because the temperature was quickly falling and because they were bored with the easy victory.

Whittingham had an answer for that, in his final statement of the night.

“Don’t get bored with winning, never get bored with winning.”