3 takeaways from Utah’s third straight loss — this time to TCU

Utah’s 2024 season took another wrong turn Saturday night, as the Utes lost for the third straight time.

TCU emerged with a 13-7 victory over Utah in a defensive struggle, as the Utes dropped a second straight game at the normally impenetrable Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Here are three Utah-centric takeaways from the loss that moved the Utes’ record to 4-3 and 1-3 in Big 12 play, all but eliminating Utah from the conference race with five games to play.

An ugly, ugly first half set the tone

There is no sense in mincing words: the first half was brutal for Utah offensively — it was their worst half of the year — and the hole that the Utes found themselves in after 30 minutes was too much to overcome.

The Utes only had 85 yards of total offense in the first half and punted on all seven of their first-half possessions.

There were three three and outs, only one drive went more than 20 yards and that one — the Utes’ final of the half — ended up in a punt after TCU got pressure on Isaac Wilson and had a second-down sack that lost 10 yards.

Utah’s average third-down distance in the first half was 10.1 yards.

The Utes were fortunate to only be down 10-0 at halftime — Utah recovered a fumble and blocked a field goal on TCU’s first two drives that could have made it worse.

Horned Frogs quarterback Josh Hoover, meanwhile, had 196 passing yards in the first half as TCU ran 41 plays in the first two quarters, compared to 29 for the Utes.

The Horned Frogs had their only touchdown drive of the night midway through the second quarter, building a double-digit lead in the process.

The performance brought boos from the crowd as the teams headed to the locker room at halftime.

“There’s no mystery as to what our issues are: it’s shown up for three weeks in a row. We’ve got to look at everything really hard in the next 48 hours and make some tough decisions,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said, when asked about the offense’s struggles.

“Everything is up for evaluation, and we will evaluate.”

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The offense isn’t finding solutions for its woes

Wilson, Utah’s true freshman starting quarterback, had a frustrating night, finishing 17 of 33 for 199 yards, one touchdown and an interception.

He also ran for 11 yards on 11 carries while being sacked four times.

Those numbers, though, don’t tell the whole story.

TCU loaded the box in the first half and shut down the Utah offense, daring Wilson to make some connections deep. While Micah Bernard got some tough yards on the ground in spurts, he ended up with only 55 rushing yards, including just 4 after halftime.

Wilson and the Ute offense finally started to show occasional signs of life in the second half, and that peaked with a 71-yard touchdown pass to Money Parks that cut Utah’s deficit to 13-7 with 6:12 to go in the quarter.

Utah’s offensive line blocked well for its quarterback on the play, Bernard picked up a blitzer and Wilson confidently stepped up in the pocket and delivered a well-thrown ball downfield for the score.

Unfortunately, that one play wasn’t nearly enough.

“As a whole offensive unit, we want to apologize to the defense,” Wilson said. “We need to put up more than seven points a game.”

Utah ended up punting the ball 11 times, including its first nine series, and failed on fourth down twice in the fourth quarter — one of those ended with Wilson’s lone turnover of the night.

There were a few positive plays for Wilson and the offense in the second half — the 71-yard score and a 36-yard back throw pass to Dorian Singer that got Utah out of the shadow of its end zone on one possession — but again, whether it’s play calling or lack of execution, Utah simply didn’t produce winning football on offense against TCU.

Utah went 2 of 15 on third down and 0 of 2 on fourth down. The Utes also had just 68 rushing yards, with a 2.6 per-carry average.

Utah, which has struggled to score touchdowns in the red zone, couldn’t even reach the red zone on Saturday. The Utes never got inside the TCU 40, one week after advancing inside the 30 seven times against Arizona State.

Knowing that this is Wilson’s offense to captain going forward with Cam Rising out for the year, Saturday’s performance leaves plenty of question marks about whether Utah can find enough offense to snap this losing streak.

Whittingham showed support for his young quarterback, who’s in a difficult situation.

“He’s a fighter, he’s a kid who’s a competitor. He’s got a lot of confidence in himself, he doesn’t get skittish,” Whittingham said.

The defense kept it within range — there just wasn’t enough chaos

Utah was in this one going down to the wire thanks to a tough defensive effort: the Utes held TCU to 4 of 17 on third-down attempts, and Utah forced the Horned Frogs into five straight punts in the second half.

At one point early in the third quarter, the Horned Frogs had 200 more yards of total offense than the Utes and yet, Utah’s defense kept it within striking distance, where one big play could shift the momentum.

That’s what the 71-yard touchdown pass did, at least for a little while.

Thanks to two stops from Utah’s defense inside the red zone in the first quarter, along with forcing TCU to score field goals and not touchdowns, this was a game going into the fourth.

Utah managed to keep TCU out of the end zone on its first possession of the second half — at a moment when a 17-0 deficit would have felt insurmountable — and it gave Utah enough time to fight its way back into the game.

Then, following Utah’s third-quarter touchdown, the Utes’ defense kept TCU pinned down on its next two possessions, giving up only 27 total yards, and that helped flip the field.

The Horned Frogs finally got a few things going early in the fourth to help flip the field position back, and Utah simply didn’t have the offensive efficiency to ever threaten.

Linebacker Karene Reid had a message for his teammates following his first game back from an injury that sidelined him a few weeks.

“Just keep everybody together. You win and lose as a team,” he said.

The defense had some flaws, even on an overall solid night — the Utes never sacked Hoover even though they applied some pressure, particularly late in the third quarter and early in the fourth.

“We just got to finish,” Utah defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa said after Utah had six tackles for loss on the night. “Almost is never enough. We’ve got to get there.”

Utah also had just one takeaway, when Hoover lost a fumble on TCU’s opening drive and Van Fillinger pounced on the ball at the Utah 10.

A second-half turnover perhaps could have helped swing that momentum even more in a winnable game, though it’s hard to fault that side of the ball after Utah gave up only 13 points.

“If you would have told me we held them to 13 points, I would have thought we’d win 20 out of 20 times,” Whittingham said.