Utes’ lack of discipline, special teams mistrust and miscues bite them as they shrink in the biggest moments at BYU

Utah freshman running back Daniel Bray turned on the jets, and no one was catching him.

Moments after Utah freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin ran for a 16-yard gain to open the fourth quarter against BYU Saturday night, the speedy Bray raced 49 yards to the royal blue end zone to give Utah a 14-10 lead.

A hush fell over the sellout crowd in Provo, which had been loud and rocking throughout the entire game, and the Utes’ defense trotted onto the field for their biggest series of the game with all of the momentum on their side.

Then BYU true freshman quarterback Bear Bachmier surgically picked apart the Ute defense on a five-play, 81-yard drive that featured two 17-plus-yard passes to get into Utah territory.

Ute safety Tao Johnson looked to have Bachmeier stopped for a sack, but didn’t wrap up well enough and Bachmeier wriggled out and tossed the ball away. Ute linebacker Lander Barton nailed Bachmeier and was called for roughing the passer, and then targeting, giving the Cougars a 13-yard gain.

“That was a huge swing of events. We had the sack and had them behind the sticks, or would’ve had them behind the sticks, and then Lander had to come clean it up and got called,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

“Like I said, I guess it was questionable whether it was or not, but (the officials) decided it was.”

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Barton will have to miss the first half of Utah’s game against Colorado next week.

“He is a really good player, so it certainly didn’t help,” Whittingham said of Barton’s absence the rest of the night. “But the refs took a look and thought it was targeting and so that was the end of Lander’s night. But yeah, he’s a really good player. You don’t want to be without any of your good players.”

On the next play, Parker Kingston rushed for a touchdown to give BYU back the lead, 17-14.

That series encapsulated much of the problem for No. 23 Utah in a 24-21 loss to No. 15 BYU, the Utes’ third straight loss in the rivalry series. Penalties, a lack of discipline and shrinking in the biggest moments of the game, while the Cougars, led by a freshman quarterback, rose to the occasion time and time again.

On Utah’s next series, quarterback Devon Dampier’s ball hung too long in the air and was intercepted by Tanner Wall. BYU capitalized on the turnover — the Utes lost the all-important turnover battle 2-0 — and Bachmeier capped off the ensuing drive with a 22-yard touchdown run on third-and-11, dragging a number of Ute defenders into the end zone with him.

BYU led 24-14.

“It was disappointing. We took the lead 17-14 and then just seemed like in the blink of an eye, they were back in the lead at (24-14). … That QB draw really was damaging, what was it, third and a lot and you got the QB draw down there in the red zone, so we just didn’t play as well as we needed to,” Whittingham said.

Utah would score once more on a Dampier pass to Larry Simmons to narrow the lead to 24-21 with 1:28 left, but the Utes were called for illegal touching on the ensuing onside kick.

With just one Ute timeout left, BYU kneeled the game out and sent a crowd of 64,794 — the second-largest in school history — rushing onto the LaVell Edwards Stadium field.

The Utes sure would have liked a few more points near the end of the game, and Utah bypassed opportunities to put at least nine points on the scoreboard throughout the contest.

Utah opted to go for it on fourth down on its first drive of the game, but that decision seemed to be a result of Utah offensive coordinator Jason Beck wanting to score a touchdown to start the contest.

Beck called an outside run on that fourth-and-1, and BYU’s Mory Bama made a good tackle to turn the ball over on downs.

The second opportunity for a field goal came on the Utes’ third drive of the game. The Utes did send the field goal team onto the field, and though Dillon Curtis’ 46-yard field goal wasn’t even close, BYU had called timeout prior to the kick.

After Curtis’ attempt, Whittingham elected to send the offense back on the field for fourth-and-7, but Dampier couldn’t connect with Tobias Merriweather and Utah turned the ball over on downs at the Cougar 28-yard line.

“The analytics there said to go for it as well, but we were going to kick it initially and then we had a change of heart,” Whittingham said.

In the third quarter, Utah had a chance to tie the game with the ball at the Cougar eight-yard line, and again the Utes rolled the dice on fourth-and-3.

Dampier was stopped a yard short of the line to gain by former Ute Keanu Tanuvasa.

Special team miscues — and maybe mistrust — were a big theme for Utah. Postgame, when asked about the decisions to go for it, Whittingham leaned on analytics informing those decisions.

“Analytics. Well inside the analytics to go, well inside three yards inside the analytics, and so unless you tell me to go against the analytics, that’s why,” Whittingham said.

Sure, Curtis very well may have missed the 46-yarder again, but there were two other chip-shot field goals that could have given the Utes six points. Curtis was good from around that range, going three-for-three on extra points.

In a relatively low-scoring rivalry game, those six points could have come up huge.

A special teams error — this time on a punt return — was also a turning point in the game. After scoring their first touchdown of the game to tie the game at 7-7, the Utes had just forced a Cougar three-and-out and were poised to get the ball back with 2:20 left in the second quarter. A score to end the half would have given Utah the lead, plus the Utes would get the ball back to open the half.

Instead, Mana Carvalho tried to field a punt that he should have let go, muffed it and BYU’s Talan Alfrey jumped on the loose ball at the Utah 40-yard line.

“He just felt the ball was floating. His exact words, he thought it was coming deeper and it wasn’t. Then it took a nosedive, he said, as all of a sudden it just dipped and caught him by surprise and consequently mishandled it,” Whittingham said.

Suddenly, momentum had swung the Cougars’ way.

A 13-yard pass from Bachmeier to Kingston, and later a fourth-and-1 rushing conversion from the BYU quarterback, assured that BYU would get points, but bad clock management from the Cougars in the red zone meant that BYU would only score three to lead 10-7 at halftime.

Another key in the Utes’ third straight rivalry loss? A shocking lack of discipline. Some penalties are to be expected in a heated rivalry game in front of a hostile crowd, but there were just too many from Whittingham’s team.

Credit the Utes’ first penalty to the BYU student section — Utah was flagged for a false start on the first play of the night. But the other ones were on the Utes, who committed 12 total penalties for 77 yards, while the Cougars had five for 42 yards.

“There’s just been a couple games where it seems to snowball on us and tonight was one of those two games and there was some really damaging penalties there,” Whittingham said.

Utah outgained BYU in total yardage, 470-368, and outrushed BYU 226-206, but in the key moments of the game, the Utes’ offense and defense made too many mistakes.

“They made the plays they needed to make. We didn’t match that, and like I said, it boils down to the turnover margin, the red-zone production and the fourth downs,” Whittingham said.

Utah, one of the best red-zone teams in the country entering Saturday, was 2 of 4 inside the 20.

Dampier threw for 244 yards and two touchdowns with an interception on 56% completion, adding 64 yards on the ground.

Late in the third quarter, he limped off the field, and from that point on, Dampier, who was great on the run on Saturday night, never ran the ball again.

Instead, Utah brought in freshman quarterback Ficklin three times for runs. Ficklin’s first run, on the Utes’ fourth-quarter touchdown drive that gave Utah a 14-10 lead, went for 16 yards and led to Bray’s score.

Ficklin’s next two runs went for three yards and a loss of three.

Postgame, Whittingham said they had designed runs planned for Ficklin before the game.

“We just tried to get a spark and Byrd is a really good runner and we had a package specifically for him with Devon on the field at the same time, two quarterback package,” Whittingham said. “And so we decided at the second half that was something that we wanted to go to.”

After the game, in response to a question about if he is healthy right now, Dampier responded, “Yeah, I’m solid.”

Asked about Dampier’s health after the game, Whittingham said, “You’d have to ask Devon about how he was feeling.”

After nine straight Utah wins in the rivalry game, the tide has turned. BYU has won three straight games against Utah for the first time since the early 1990s, and the Cougars have won both meetings with the two programs in the Big 12 Conference.

In the twilight of his career, does tonight’s result motivate or fuel Whittingham to return for another year in 2026?

“No, no. We won nine in a row before that, so we’re still on the very plus side of that ledger,” Whittingham said.