Utah’s special teams miscues were magnified in its 24-21 loss to BYU last weekend.
Not a lot went right for the Utes’ special teams unit in Provo, and a few mistakes proved costly in the three-point defeat.
Perhaps the most glaring miscue of the night was Mana Carvalho’s muffed punt near the end of the second quarter. Utah had scored a touchdown to level the score at seven, then forced a BYU three-and-out.
The Utes had all the momentum, and it looked like they would get the ball back near midfield with 2:30 remaining with a chance to score before halftime, and they would also get the ball out of the locker room in the second half.
In an instant, however, that momentum swung BYU’s way.
Carvalho ran up to try and field a punt that he should have just let go, and he couldn’t hang on. BYU recovered and scored a field goal to take a 10-7 lead at halftime.
“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,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.
Then there were two holding penalties during Cougar punts that put the Utes in poor field position, and another on the second-half kickoff, but BYU chose to rekick instead of backing Utah up to its own 13-yard line (it was unclear why that decision was made).
Penalties on punt or kickoff returns haven’t been very common for the Utes — entering Saturday, they had just two, a holding penalty on a punt against Wyoming, a block in the back on a punt against West Virginia — but they were an issue on Saturday.
“My punt return unit has to be better. In my opinion, that was the single biggest pain in the special teams is the flags that we caused,” said special teams coordinator Sharrieff Shah.
“Whether it was a holding that backed the offense up two times, that’s absolutely inexcusable to have those many mistakes in such a critical game and very painful juncture.”
Shah emphasized that the punt return unit will need to be more disciplined going forward.
“We have to be more disciplined in executing our techniques, especially when we’re in emotionally driven games, and it will be, Saturday will be another emotionally driven game because at some point there is going to be a play that needs to be made,” Shah said.
“And so you just hope the kids execute, don’t allow their emotion to put them in a very compromising position, giving the referee an opportunity to make a call that was rightfully made, so I just think we have to be so much more disciplined in the punt return and our return units.”
In evaluating his entire special teams unit this week, Shah said punter Orion Phillips is doing really well — he hasn’t had to punt in a lot of Utah’s games this year — but noted there’s still areas of improvement.
“I’d like to punt the ball better. Location wise, I’d like to get more hang time. I love where Orion is developing, but I like to be better in our punt game,” Shah said.
Phillips is averaging 43 yards per punt and has pinned seven of his 15 punts inside the 20-yard line. Importantly, opponents have only returned three punts, and the longest return allowed by Utah has been three yards.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect on Utah’s special teams, however, is how much the coaching staff can — or can’t — trust freshman kicker Dillon Curtis.
Curtis earned the starting job as a true freshman after a sensational prep career at Murray High that saw him smash state records and earn a rare scholarship as a kicker.
He’s drastically improved Utah’s kickoff game, registering 33 touchbacks on 44 attempts, and has made all but one of his 34 extra points.
However, Curtis is 5 of 8 on field goals attempts, with all three misses coming in between 40 and 49 yards against Wyoming. Since then, Curtis hasn’t attempted a field goal between 40-49 yards, but he is a perfect 3 for 3 from closer distances since that game.
In a rivalry game wherein Whittingham decided to go for it three times in critical spots, at least one of those was influenced by an apparent lack of trust in Curtis to make that kick, at least on that night in Provo.
On fourth-and-7 from BYU 28-yard line with 9:14 in the second quarter, down seven, Whittingham brought Curtis on for a 46-yard field goal. BYU called a timeout before the snap, and Curtis’s practice kick was nowhere close, sailing wide right.
“We were going to kick it obviously, but we have struggled at that exact distance this year, the 45, 46 yard range. We’re one for four from that range, actually one for five because we missed one a couple games back, but there was a penalty so it didn’t count,” Whittingham said.
Whittingham changed his mind after the practice miss, and Utah went for it on fourth down and couldn’t convert.
“When we saw the kick go fairly significantly wide right, we said, ‘You know what? Let’s just go for it,” Whittingham said.
Though Curtis has been nails from closer than 40 yards, and is 1 for 1 on kicks further than 50 yards, will Utah be able to trust him on long field goals going forward?
It all starts with Curtis being more consistent in practice.
“When my head coach comes to me and says, ‘Hey, listen, what do we look like in field goal?’ I want to be able to tell him, ‘Coach, we’re incredibly solid because we had a solid week of practice. I can show you that,’” Shah said.
“But if we’re all over the place in practice, no one has any confidence in me telling my head coach, ‘Coach let’s go for it now with a field goal.’”
Shah emphasized that they have not lost confidence in Curtis, and have told him that the missed kicks don’t define him.
“So it’s continuing to build Dillon up, making sure that he never loses confidence in himself because we at no point have lost confidence in him and making him a good practice player, giving him practice situations to kick intermediate balls,” Shah said.
College football is a results-based business, and Utah’s coaches need to see more from Curtis in practice before giving him the green light on some of the longer field goals instead of going for it on fourth down.
Of course, Utah’s ultimate hope is that Curtis stays on the sidelines except for extra points and kickoffs, as has been the case in Ute blowout wins.
There will be a point where he will be called upon this season, however, and Curtis will need to be ready to convert.
“Showing him, consistently, that you have it, buddy. Don’t let it wane. We will not stop believing in Dillon Curtis,” Shah said.
