Utah crossed the goal line six times in a 53-7 win over Colorado, starting with freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin’s 63-yard run on the game’s second play.
The most celebrated one by Utah’s players, however, might have been Nate Johnson’s 56-yard touchdown run with 3:12 left in the game.
Johnson took the wildcat snap, slipped through a hole and turned on the jets, racing to the south end zone for his first touchdown of the year.
The former Utah quarterback — who transferred to Vanderbilt, then back to Salt Lake City — had been used as a change-of-pace option in the run game, racking up 81 yards on 13 carries early in the season.
A red-zone fumble in the first half against Wyoming effectively ended Johnson’s involvement in the offense, as he wasn’t seen on the field until five weeks later at BYU, where he played seven snaps but didn’t get a carry.
In the closing minutes of Utah’s blowout victory, he got his chance to tote the rock and made the most of it. He was greeted on the sideline with hugs and high-fives from his teammates.
“He’s always been a positive guy. I know these past couple weeks he hasn’t been getting the time he wanted, but today he showed why he should play,” linebacker Johnathan Hall said.
Running back Wayshawn Parker, who had his best game of the season with 145 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries, is close with Johnson and loved seeing him reach the end zone.
“I mean for me, seeing him scoring, we got a real close bond outside of football so … just (smiling) ear to ear,” Parker said. “All the stuff that he’s been through. He made that one fumble, ever since, he’s been hard on himself and I felt like him scoring that just let a lot off his back — a lot.”
While Daniel Bray, who had just four carries for nine yards last night, has assumed that speedy change-of-pace running back role for the Utes, perhaps there is still room for contributions from Johnson as Utah heads down the home stretch of their schedule.
“It was great to see Nate do that. I know that he’s had that in him and it was good to see it come out finally,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “And he really hit the accelerator and you saw that, I think it was a 10.2 is what he ran in high school. He’s incredible as far as that goes, as far as the speed. And so that was great to see Nate make that play. No one was more excited than Nate. He was grinning from ear-to-ear.”
Special teams redemption
Utah’s special team didn’t have a banner day against BYU, to say the least. Between a muffed punt by Mana Carvalho that swung momentum late the in second quarter, to multiple costly holding penalties on punt returns, to Whittingham’s decision to go for it on fourth down three times instead of kicking field goals, there was a lot of pressure on the Utes’ special teams to bounce back against Colorado.
Boy, did they ever.
The special teams highlight of the game was Orion Phillips’ fake punt. Tight end Dallen Bentley lined up in punt block, but leaked out as the Colorado rushers came. No one was around Bentley, and Phillips softly tossed the ball his way for an easy first down.
At one point, Phillips had more passing yards than either team’s quarterbacks.
“No, that was designed. Yeah, we would skin him alive if he did that on his own,” Whittingham said. “It was definitely choreographed, rehearsed, worked on in practice. We actually had it for the last few weeks now, we added it, and tonight was the night that we saw the opening to utilize it.”
Already down 40-0 as the first half neared a close, things went from bad to worse for Colorado as Utah blocked the Buffaloes’ punt from the Colorado 18-yard line. Jackson Bennee lined up like he was going to cover one of Colorado’s gunners, but instead made a beeline for Buffaloes punter Damon Graves and got his hands on the punt.
“That was Coach Scalley that concocted that punt block. It was out of our safe look. Typically when you’re in a safe look, you’re just guarding against the fake and you’re not giving much pressure on the punter,” Whittingham said. “And we kind of lulled them to sleep and came out with a safe look and he had a block designed off of that and it worked exactly like it did in practice.”
After the BYU game, the biggest improvement special teams coordinator Sharrieff Shah wanted to see was no penalties on punts or kick returns. Utah accomplished that on Saturday.
Phillips punted the ball five times, averaging 46.8 yards per punt, Carvalho had five punt returns for 60 yards, including a 19-yard return and Rayshawn Glover had an 18-yard kickoff return.
This time around, Utah elected to kick the field goals, giving kicker Dillon Curtis four chances. Curtis was good from 53, 23 and 45 yards, and perfect on six extra points, giving the freshman a good morale boost heading into next week.
Whittingham even tried a 59-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, eliciting cheers from the crowd, but Curtis didn’t strike it right and it was short.
All in all, it was a fantastic day for Utah’s special teams unit, which will need to be at their best in the next four games.
“It was offense, defense, special teams all hitting on all cylinders,” Whittingham said.
Other takeaways from Utah’s 53-7 win over Colorado
Early in the game, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley smelled blood in the water after easily getting pressure with four, and after that, he dialed up the blitzes.
“They blitzed us to death. They’re still blitzing us right now, and we’re inside,” Colorado coach Deion Sanders said. “And guess what, I told them, ‘Be ready for the next week. Cat’s out the bag. Be ready for it.’”
Utah had seven sacks on Saturday, with Hall leading the way with two. Elijah Elliss, John Henry Daley, Bennee, Trey Reynolds, Kash Dillon and Logan Fano all had at least half of a sack.
Postgame, Colorado quarterback Kaidon Salter said that he’d never seen some of the blitzes Scalley was sending his way.
“I watched over 10 hours of film and a lot of the pressures that came up today was nowhere to be found on the tape,” Salter said.
Utah blitzed Salter on an astounding 77.4% of his snaps. Overall, Salter was pressured on 71% of his dropbacks.
Salter was just 9 for 22 for 37 yards, and the dual-threat quarterback was also contained on the ground, finishing with -4 rushing yards.
Utah’s offensive line answered the bell, powering the run game to 422 yards and overpowering the Colorado defensive front.
“It starts up front. It definitely starts up front and we’ve been singing the praises of our offensive line all year long,” Whittingham said. “… That’s a product of number one, physicality up front and excellent schemes by our offensive coaches and running backs are doing their part. Daniel Bray has been a big factor for us now going on three weeks or so. So a lot of things go into that, but if you want the starting point, the origin is the offensive line.”
Ficklin was kept clean 80.8% of the time and was only pressured on five dropbacks. It was as ideal of a scenario as you’re ever going to have for a freshman quarterback’s first start.
Tackles Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu led the way, with Lomu earning a 87.2 Pro Football Focus grade in pass blocking, while Fano had a 83.6 pass block grade.
Tobias Merriweather missed Saturday’s game with an injury, opening some targets for other receivers. As always, Ryan Davis was the most-targeted receiver with seven targets (and two receptions for 36 yards), but Larry Simmons and tight end JJ Buchanan both emerged a bit.
Simmons had two receptions for 39 yards and a touchdown, while Buchanan contributed two catches for 35 yards and a score.
Utah has needed more reliable pass-catchers other than Davis and Bentley. Could Simmons move into a WR2 role down the stretch? We’ll see.