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Between Josh Rosen's silky delivery, the precision of his passes, the physical dominance of 6-foot-2, 225-pound Thomas Duarte and Duarte's sure-handedness, the first images of UCLA's offense Saturday made it a challenge to imagine it being stopped.

Yet, when the clock hit zero, UCLA had its lowest point total of the season.

It wasn't enough, of course. "You're not going to win many games in the Pac-12 scoring nine points," Kyle Whittingham said after Utah lost 17-9 and the South title race field narrowed to UCLA and USC.

But the idea was that you wouldn't lose too many games to UCLA allowing 17, either.

UCLA finished with one touchdown in its final four quarters after three of Rosen's first five pass attempts went for 28 or more yards, the Utes holding the Bruins to a season-low 325 total yards.

Afterward, UCLA coach Jim Mora said some of the Bruins' struggles could be attributed to the loss of linemen Alex Redmond and Connor McDermott.

"But I think most of the credit for our [offensive struggles] should go to Utah's front," he said. "That's about as good of a front as you'll find in college football. I know Alabama's a great front and there's some other great ones, but those guys are tremendous and very well-coached, and they play hard."

And when the Utah offense was flailing, Utah's defense stoned the nation's No. 17 offense. UCLA's final five drives: two punts, a missed field goal from 49 yards and two more punts.

Junior defensive end Kylie Fitts credited a midgame switch from man defense to zone for the improvement. Utah finished with one sack — Stevie Tu'ikolovatu's second of the season — but eight tackles for a loss, including one and a half from Jason Fanaika on UCLA's final series that breathed three more minutes of life into Utah's South title bid.

Fitts, playing against his former team, totaled three pass breakups. Nine of Rosen's 15 incompletions were broken up by a Ute.

Whittingham praised his defense's performance, with one exception: Utah did not force any turnovers.

After starting the season 6-0 and plus-12 in turnover margin, Utah has gone 2-3 and minus-five.

mpiper@sltrib.com

Twitter: @matthew_piper —

UCLA on offense

R 17 points were a season-low

• 325 total yards were a season-low

• The Bruins managed 150 yards after 175 yards in the first quarter.

• UCLA scored one touchdown after taking a 10-0 lead with four minutes to play in the first quarter.