Utah’s Travis Wilson threw his fifth interception in the fourth quarter. Three plays later UCLA’s Brett Hundley scored a 36 yard touchdown to take a ten point lead. On the ensuing drive, the first play was an incomplete pass by Travis Wilson.
Really, the story of the game was the five interceptions. Utah might have had a chance if they wouldn’t have continued to put the ball in the air. Or at least threw safer passes, such as swings to the backs and short quick routes, plays that would have given their play-makers a chance to make someone miss and break a big play. Instead, the passing continued, and the game ended when Myles Jack intercepted Travis Wilson, Wilson’s sixth pick of the night, with just over twenty seconds left.
UCLA has to have some concerns. When the #15 team gobbles up six turnovers, a blowout of epic proportions should be the result, but it wasn’t. Is that a testament to how good Utah’s defense is or how overrated UCLA is? Utah’s defense gave up over fifty points to Oregon State, so my money is on UCLA being overrated.
UCLA also needs to clean up their penalties. Twelve penalties is too many. Two of them gave Utah first downs.
UCLA faces Cal, followed by #5 Stanford and #2 Oregon. They have to play better if they want to beat these highly ranked teams.
Utah once again has started 0-2 in the PAC-12. Next week they face #5 Stanford and without some amazing luck, they will once again be 0-3 in conference play. Utah hasn’t played well since they stopped playing BYU in November. Perhaps beating BYU is success enough and a winning record in the PAC-12 doesn’t matter. Let’s hope the Utes set their sights higher the next two years as they have chosen to not include BYU in their schedule.
Football matters in Utah.