LOS ANGELES — Utah’s players streamed into the visitor’s locker room with smiles on their faces, chattering about the dominant victory that had finished just moments before.
That moment was markedly different than the majority of the walks to the locker room last season, which were full of hanging heads and a sense of disbelief that the losing streak just kept continuing.
In many ways, Saturday night’s 43-10 blowout of UCLA at the Rose Bowl — the site of two recent crushing Ute losses on a grand stage in the nation’s oldest bowl game — was an exorcism of sorts for a program that needed it.
“This feels great. This feels great to come out here and just handle business. I know the last couple of games that we’ve been to the Rose Bowl wasn’t the outcome that we wanted, so to walk out with the victory, it’s big,” Smith Snowden said.
Utah scored touchdowns on its first three drives, and the fanbase collectively exhaled.
After two years of offensive mediocrity, especially last season, quarterback Devon Dampier, offensive coordinator Jason Beck and the rest of Utah’s offense reminded Ute fans what it was like to have fun watching an offense again.
There were rarely explosive plays — Utah’s longest offensive gain of the night was a 36-yard pass to Tobias Merriweather — but the Utes imposed their will, one run and one screen pass at a time.
UCLA couldn’t stop the Utes’ more uptempo, spread attack, which was like death by a thousand cuts for the Bruins.
From the start of the game to the end, Utah was in full control. It all started up front, where the Ute offensive line decidedly handled the Bruins’ defensive line. That cleared the way for good performances from running backs Wayshawn Parker (62 yards and a score on 11 carries) and NaQuari Rogers (61 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries).
Dampier engineered Beck’s offense just like he did at New Mexico, sans the turnovers, and posted a career-high completion percentage (84%).
Beck’s offense ran like a well-oiled machine, absent of many mistakes. Utah had no turnovers (though Wayshawn Parker fumbled, but it was recovered by offensive lineman Michael Mokofisi) and just three offensive penalties (a false start on Dallen Bentley, illegal touching on Larry Simmons and holding on Caleb Lomu).
Utah’s high-powered offense was the main takeaway from Saturday’s game, but here are some additional thoughts from the day after.
There were some questions heading into the season about Utah’s defensive line, but those were quickly put to bed in the opening game.
Utah consistently generated pressure on UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava, even without sending the house. According to PFSN’s Cam Mellor, 60% of Utah’s non-blitz snaps resulted in getting pressure on Iamaleava, which was the highest number of any FBS team in Week 1.
The Utes bottled up UCLA’s rushing attack (84 total yards), and made life difficult for Iamaleava, who completed just 50% of his pass attempts.
John Henry Daley, making his first-ever start at defensive end, was an impact player, registering two sacks. Freshman defensive tackle Karson Kaufusi, who was talked up during fall camp, made a sizable contribution in his six snaps, sacking Iamaleava with freshman defensive end Kash Dillon, and defensive end Logan Fano was refreshed and explosive after a healthy offseason, contributing a sack and a pass deflection.
Kaufusi, and Jonah Lea’ea may be seeing their snap count increase over the next two weeks, as starting defensive tackle Dallas Vakalahi left the game early with an injury.
“We lost Dallas Vakalahi there. He couldn’t finish the game. He should be OK in the long term, but we’ll see how long it takes to get him back,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said on the ESPN 700 postgame show.
- Another absence on defense was safety Rabbit Evans, who was projected to start but missed Saturday’s game with an injury. Nate Ritchie started in his place, and had a forgettable game with two missed tackles and a few coverage lapses.
- Utah missed too many tackles. Pro Football Focus has the count at 10, which needs to be cleaned up before conference play.
- Smith Snowden was featured extensively on offense, (six receptions for 51 yards and three carries for 15 yards and a touchdown), but his overall snap count ended up lower than many games last season.
Snowden played a total of 45 total snaps — 22 on offense and 23 on defense. That’s less than nearly every game that he started last season, playing only on defense. Utah played only 50 total snaps on defense yesterday, due to getting UCLA off the field fairly quickly, but there appeared to be an effort by Utah to conserve Snowden.
Snowden mostly played outside corner on Saturday, with Jackson Bennee getting a lot of run at nickel, Snowden’s usual starting spot.
- The No. 1 thing that defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley wanted to see more of this season was “havoc plays,” something Utah’s defense didn’t produce nearly enough of last season. He got his wish, as Utah sacked Iamaleava four times and picked him off once, as linebacker Trey Reynolds came away with his first interception.
- When Dampier came out of the game with Utah up by 33 with 4:32 remaining, it was Byrd Ficklin in at quarterback, not QB2 Isaac Wilson. I’d be curious to hear more from Whittingham about this during the upcoming week, but it could come down to wanting to preserve Wilson’s redshirt.
If Dampier misses extended time, it’ll likely be Wilson under center, but it’s good to get freshman Ficklin some game experience in mop up time.
Ficklin helped milk the clock for the Utes with a 16-yard run on third-and-1, followed by another four-yard keeper.
- Dillon Curtis missed his first-ever extra point (the snap on the kick was high, which could have affected timing; or it may have been some first-game jitters), but was perfect after that.
His 54-yard field goal to close the first half was the longest ever by a freshman kicker.
Orion Phillips, who punted just once on Saturday, had a 42-yarder that was fair caught inside the UCLA six-yard line.