This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Uh … maybe this whole Pac-12 thing wasn't such a great idea, after all. Maybe it will be harder than anyone thought.

It will get better, though. The Utes will eventually win a game. Right?

On what seemed a perfectly beautiful night to make a strong statement, to start a classic new conference rivalry between two schools that hadn't played one another in 32 years, somebody fired off a stink bomb.

The Utes, it turned out, wouldn't mind waiting another 32.

Washington rolled into Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday night, accepted the gifts of the home team, and welcomed Utah to the new league with a 31-14 beatdown, a whupping the guys in red earned.

"We just didn't have it," defensive end Derrick Shelby said afterward.

The problem with playing in the Pac-12 is, when the Utes don't have it, when they aren't on top of their game, when they handle the ball as though they're wearing boxing gloves, they aren't playing New Mexico or Wyoming anymore.

Here, they didn't and they weren't and they were and they weren't. They faced the steady effort of the Huskies, who might have edged Utah even if it had brought its best game.

The fact that the Utes failed to bring anything close to that made this occasion, their first Pac-12 game against a team not ineligible for the postseason, that much more punishing, painful and, ultimately, pathetic for them.

They couldn't run the ball, ending up with a total of 17 yards.

They couldn't stop the run, yielding 189 yards to Chris Polk, a terrific Pac-12 talent.

They lost their starting quarterback, watching Jordan Wynn jog off the field into the locker room before the end of the first half with a left shoulder injury yet to be fully diagnosed.

And they gagged up the ball to the Huskies five times, twice inside Washington's 6-yard line.

"Turnovers," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said, pausing after the damage was done. "… It's a funny deal."

He didn't mean ha-ha funny. He meant that-just-cost-my-team-any-sort-of-chance-to-win funny.

The bad humor started from the beginning. The very beginning.

Utah may have broken a record for the briefest time elapsed before a receiving team enabled the kicking team to score: nine seconds.

On the opening kick, return man Ryan Lacy made a few nice peek-a-boo moves, and promptly fumbled, allowing Washington linebacker Jamaal Kearse to gobble up the loose ball and run it in for a touchdown, a boneheaded play Whittingham called "the worst possible scenario."

It was a mere early-game snack.

Fumbles and bumbles and picks broke out all over the place. Most egregious were a pick of a Wynn pass inside the Husky 5-yard line and a pickup of Dres Anderson's bobble after a reception at the Washington 6 near the end of the half.

Those kinds of mistakes tear the heart out of a team, and all the tearing became evident as the effort and the results devolved after the break. Asked about the turnovers, the Utes, one by one, shook their heads and concurred.

"You can't do that," said Whittingham.

"It doesn't help the defense at all," said backup quarterback Jon Hays.

"It sucks," said offensive lineman John Cullen.

And it will suck again next week against Arizona State, Whittingham agreed, if the Utes continue to goof up. Perhaps equally harrowing for them, even if they don't, they still could lose.

Their top quarterback now has two hurt shoulders, and might not be able to go: "It doesn't look good," Whittingham said. Their defense, as mentioned, gave up too much yardage against a tough offense: "They ran the ball right down our throat," Whittingham said. Their own run game was almost nonexistent: "That was a major factor," Whittingham said.

Other than that, everything was perfect.

As for at least some of the misfortune, Whittingham concluded: "That's life."

That's life in the Pac-12, where the Utes have now played two games, one on the road and one at home, and lost both of them.

Gordon Monson hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 97.5 FM/1280 AM The Zone.