‘It’s very satisfying’: Utes stare adversity in the face and come out smiling

SEATTLE — The Utah football team seemed to have everything going against it Saturday at Husky Stadium. Well, everything except the weather, which featured clear blue skies and 60-degree weather on a picture-perfect afternoon, where it’s often rainy and cool this time of year.

But, then again, it was November, a month the Utes have traditionally struggled in (16-17 during the Pac-12 era) and they were playing Washington, which has given Utah more trouble than any other opponent in the 125-year history of the program. The Utes were 1-12 all-time against the Huskies, their worst record against any team they’ve played at least 10 times and the worst against anyone they’ve played at least five times, except for that vaunted YMCA program that beat them five times between 1894 and 1900.

The Huskies were bound to come into the game fighting mad after already losing a couple of home games by slim margins at a place they had only lost once in the previous three seasons. Not only that, they were coming off a bye week, rested and ready for the Utes.

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It looked really shaky for the Utes when they started off the game like they had been reading too many of their press clippings or perhaps were just sleepwalking as they fell behind 14-3, showing little of the prolific offense from the past month when they’d averaged 37 points per game or the stingy defense, which had given up just 23 points total over four games. Then after getting back in the game, they coughed up the ball twice in the third quarter, thwarting promising drives in Washington territory.

However, just when it looked like the Utes were going to throw away another promising season, their Top-Ten ranking and their Pac-12 Championship and Rose Bowl hopes, they put on their best Alfred E. Neuman faces and said “What, Me Worry? The Utes calmly ran off 20 straight points over a 14-minute period from the 3:06 mark of the third quarter to the 4:52 mark of the fourth to essentially put the game on ice.

Jaylon Johnson’s pick-six on a 40-yard interception got the Utes back in the game late in the third quarter and the Utes followed with two touchdowns on their next two drives, covering 82 and 84 yards in the fourth quarter. 

On each drive, the Utes converted twice on third-down plays to keep the drives alive as Tyler Huntley ran for one first down and passed for three others, a 41-yard pass to Jaylen Dixon, another 14-yarder to Solomon Enis and a 28-yarder to Samson Nacua.

Ute coach Kyle Whittingham often downplays victories, but after this one, he couldn’t help himself and his smile said it all. 

“It’s up there for me,” he said, when asked if it was his biggest win, and added, “It’s very satisfying, especially under the circumstances.”

He called the win “a gut-check” and added “we hung in there, never quit, kept fighting and found a way to win. I couldn’t be more proud of a group of guys.”

The four Ute players in the post-game interview — Huntley, Johnson, Julian Blackmon and Zack Moss — all agreed that it was the biggest win of their careers, mainly because it was against a team they had never beaten. 

“No panic,” said Huntley. “We were slackin’ in the first half, but the defense kept us in the game. To win the game, you have to convert on third down, that’s what we were harping on. We did what we had to do.”

Now with their biggest hurdle out of the way, the Utes need to take care of business in their next three games after getting a well-timed week off this week, and they could be playing Oregon for the Pac-12 Championship in early December. 

Whittingham knew Washington has been his bugaboo as he joked after the game: “What were they, 900 and oh (against us)?” 

Then he added, “Now it’s 900 and one.”