No. 25 Utes shake off sloppy first half to soundly defeat FCS Cal Poly

In the end, the scoreboard, which read 63-9, looked like we thought it would when Utah hosted FCS Cal Poly on Saturday.

But Utah coach Kyle Whittingham and his staff will have things to correct from the Utes’ first-half performance during film study and practice this week. After a near-perfect 43-10 win over UCLA at the Rose Bowl last week, Utah’s play against Cal Poly was sloppy at times on both sides of the ball as rain poured down at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Before the end of the first quarter, the Utes had racked up more penalties (four) than they did all game against UCLA (three). Receiver Tobias Merriweather even got called for offensive encroachment, which is a very rare penalty.

Utah punted three times in the first half Saturday (including two three-and-outs), which was two more times than in the opening-week victory in Pasadena.

Additionally, Utah’s wide receivers struggled to get separation at times against the Big Sky Mustangs’ defense, the offensive line allowed its first sack of the season and quarterback Devon Dampier threw a few passes he wished he had back.

“Early on we had that little thunder burst. It makes things a little more difficult. There’s no excuses, but I don’t think Devon was gripping the ball as well as he could have during that 15- or 20-minute period, whatever it was,” Whittingham said.

“I mean, we just didn’t get in that rhythm. We didn’t come out, I’m not going to say we weren’t ready because we were ready to play, but we just didn’t come out and execute as well as we did last week. Sometimes that happens.”

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When Cal Poly had the ball, it was twice able to drive deep into Ute territory, once due to a 42-yard pass from Ty Dieffenbach to Kian Salehi and the other due to a pass interference penalty on Scooby Davis.

Both times, Utah’s defense was able to stand strong and hold the Mustangs to field goals, but there will be plenty of teaching material from the first half for Ute coaches to harp on this week, especially in the secondary.

“We didn’t cover all the routes as well as we should. We turned some routes loose up the field that they didn’t connect on, fortunately,” Whittingham said. “Unfortunately, one or two they did connect on.

… About 50% completion rate, no touchdowns, couple picks, so we’re doing some good things, but there’ll be bigger tests along the way in that regard. Still a little bit unknown right now just how sound we are back there because we really haven’t been tested yet.”

Though the Utes didn’t allow a Mustang touchdown, they were fooled by a Cal Poly double-pass in the second quarter, though Mustang quarterback receiver overthrew an absolutely wide-open Alek Marshall for what should have been a touchdown.

Those negatives aside, Utah took care of business, gave its starters some rest, got a good look at some second- and third-string players and buttoned up its second victory of the 2025 season in decisive fashion.

In a little over two quarters of play, Dampier finished with a final line of 192 yards and three passing touchdowns on a 74% completion rate, adding 25 yards on the ground.

Dampier got on the scoreboard early with a 52-yard screen pass to Wayshawn Parker and threw a four-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Davis early in the second quarter — Utah’s first touchdown by a wide receiver this season.

Dampier’s last pass of the day was his best of the game, an 11-yard dot to tight end Dallen Bentley in the corner of the end zone. It was a great throw by Dampier and a good grab by Bentley. The connection gave the Utes a commanding 42-6 lead with 9:48 left in the third quarter and allowed the Utes to empty their bench.

Utah’s offensive line, sans center Jaren Kump (held out for precautionary reasons; Alex Harrison started in his place), created plenty of rushing lanes for Parker (six carries for 50 yards and a score) and NaQuari Rogers (seven carries for 31 yards and two touchdowns).

After a minimal impact in the win over UCLA, the Utes’ wide receivers got more involved, with Davis leading the way with six catches for 58 yards and Merriweather contributing three catches for 37 yards.

The receiver room is still a work in progress, Whittingham says.

“Davis, he had a really nice game today … Tobias had six (targets, three receptions) and Smith Snowden, we know what he adds. He didn’t add nearly as much this week as last week, but he only played a half of the game on offense,” Whittingham said.

“But the receiver position in and of itself as a work in progress. We’ve got about four guys right now, five guys that we really have trust in and we’re waiting for another guy or two to join that group.”

Once again, offensive coordinator Jason Beck made creative use of his personnel, with jumbo and wildcat packages and lots of use of motion. Snowden got some early touches, including a nine-yard run for a first down on Utah’ first drive, but overall got a break from the offense, as did Lander Barton.

Beck had a wildcat package for tight end Hunter Andrews, and former quarterback Nate Johnson got 11 carries for 59 yards and a touchdown, but Utah’s offensive coordinator was overall able to be pretty vanilla in terms of his play calls and save some trickery for future games.

Utah’s offense produced 518 yards in the win.

The Utes were pretty much perfect offensively in the second half, mostly under the direction of backup quarterback Byrd Ficklin, scoring four touchdowns on their four drives in the final three quarters.

Ficklin was impressive in his first extended game action, completing all four of his passes and rushing five times for 55 yards and two scores. Ficklin’s passes were crisp and on target, and the freshman’s running ability was on full display.

Utah elected to play Ficklin in part to preserve sophomore Isaac Wilson’s redshirt games (he can play in up to four and still redshirt) and to also get an extended look at the freshman.

Perhaps the best play of Saturday afternoon came on Ficklin’s first rush of the game, a 38-yard touchdown run that featured the freshman’s speed and ended with a stiff arm to a Cal Poly defender en route to the end zone.

Defensively, aside from some lapses in the secondary that will need to be corrected before facing a more formidable opponent, Utah did what it was expected to do. The Utes didn’t allow Cal Poly to score a touchdown, limited the Mustangs to 223 total yards and sacked the quarterback three times.

Nickel Jackson Bennee was the star of the game, extending Utah’s pick-six streak to an NCAA-record 22 seasons early on. Bennee jumped the route, snagged the interception and had nothing but green turf in front of him, sprinting 46 yards to the south end zone to give Utah a 14-0 lead.

“Just decided to run as fast as I could,” Bennee said. “I’m just glad for the opportunities I’m getting out here. It’s really fun to play with the boys.”

Bennee added five tackles and three pass breakups to go along with his interception return for a touchdown.

Linebacker Johnathan Hall nearly had Utah’s second pick-six of the night late in the second quarter.

Hall got in the face of Cal Poly QB Anthony Grigsby Jr. and deflected his pass into the air, corralling the ball at the five-yard line and nearly scoring.

“Overall, solid performance, and like I said, we took care of the business that we needed to take care of.”

—  Utah coach Kyle Whittingham

Rogers punched it in from the 1-yard line to give Utah a 28-6 lead.

Another group that stood out on defense were the defensive ends. Without Logan Fano (held out for precautionary reasons), the four Utah defensive ends that played extensive minutes — Kash Dillon, John Henry Daley, Paul Fitzgerald and Lance Holtzclaw — all had at least half of a sack.

“That’s encouraging, and Logan Fano, our lead defensive end, wasn’t out there today, so it was a great opportunity for Kash Dillon and Lance Holtzclaw and these other guys to get reps and they get good pressure off the edge,” Whittingham said. “You feel confident in all five of ‘em, although only four played today,”

Though there’s still aspects to tune up and fix — as is the case with all football teams — the bottom line is that Utah did what it was supposed to do and is 2-0 heading to Laramie to face Wyoming next Saturday.

“Overall, solid performance, and like I said, we took care of the business that we needed to take care of,” Whittingham said.

Injury report: Beside Fano and Kump, defensive tackle Dallas Vakalahi, safety Rabbit Evans and receiver Daidren Zipperer did not play in Utah’s win over Cal Poly.

“We held Kump out today for precautionary reasons as well as Logan Fano. Rabbit is still not quite ready, but hopefully we get all those guys back for this week. We’ll see what happens,” Whittingham said.