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Utah had until takeoff on Saturday to revel in its 26-10 victory on one of the most storied grounds in American sports.
The wheels went up, the TVs came on, and the Utes — those who were still awake, at least — watched their next opponent nearly sink a national title game favorite.
"The entire airplane was pretty much glued to that game," said head coach Kyle Whittingham at Monday's news conference.
Washington State was a match for the vaunted Oregon attack, totaling 499 yards to the Ducks' 501. Senior quarterback Connor Halliday completed 43 of 63 passes for 436 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Were it not for a questionable no-call on Wazzu's final drive, the Cougars might have taken No. 2 Oregon to overtime.
Utah knows this isn't any old 1-3 team.
"They took the Ducks right down to the wire," Whittingham said. "We just know they're prolific on offense, and this might be the best defense Coach [Mike] Leach has had since he's been at Washington State, so they're a very dangerous team."
The Utes have proved to be the same. A 10-point favorite for homecoming week, they received votes in both the AP Top 25 and Amway Coaches polls after a dominating performance against Michigan in Ann Arbor.
And dangerous or not, Washington State is almost surely one of the Pac-12's most beatable teams. A loss to them would again put Utah's bowl hopes in jeopardy — it was the final nail when the Cougars staved off a Utah rally to win 49-37 in Pullman last year.
The last time Washington State visited Salt Lake City, however, Utah rolled 49-6 and Leach was so frustrated with his team's no-show in the trenches that he made his entire offensive and defensive lines answer to the media after the game. Some were in tears.
"Our five couldn't whip their two, which means if five of our guys went in an alley and got in a fight with two of theirs, we would have gotten massacred," Leach said at the time.
That chapter is closed, Leach told reporters in Pullman on Monday. It's not the last time. It's this time, he said.
He expects Utah to be "similar to what they always are. Strong, physical, very fundamentally sound."
Whittingham agreed with a reporter Monday that preparing for Washington State is somewhat similar to preparing for Air Force in the Mountain West days — not, obviously, in style of play, but in that the style of play is such a departure from what they see every other week.
A hallmark for Kalani Sitake's defense is stopping the run, but, "How they're going to beat you is throwing the football," Whittingham said.
Halliday leads the nation with 1,901 passing yards — 301 more than the next guy, West Virginia's Clint Trinkett — and Utah will face four wide receivers almost the entire game.
Halliday distributes the ball evenly and gets rid of it quickly, Whittingham said. Pass rushers have to be patient, watching the ball sail over their head for a completion time after time, and lining up to try again.
Junior defensive end Jason Fanaika said he sat next to junior defensive tackle Seni Fauonuku on the plane, and they noticed that the Cougar linemen have quick feet. His goal? If not to sack Halliday, then to at least invade his personal space.
"If he knows you're there, it's always going to be in the back of his head," Fanaika said.
Twitter: @matthew_piper —
Coaches go back
Mike Leach and Kyle Whittingham are old friends, Pac-12 coaches and BYU graduates.
But while they have a lot in common now, they didn't always.
"He was a total football icon at BYU," Leach said of Whittingham on Monday. "There were the haves and the have nots, and Kyle was definitely a have. Played on a pretty good football team and had bigger muscles than most people."
Leach, meanwhile, played rugby, and admired Whittingham from afar. They had shared friends as they rose through the coaching ranks, and eventually struck up a bond.
"He's just such a great guy to hang around with," Whittingham said. "The guy is just intriguing, great sense of humor, and he's always got something very interesting to talk about."
— Matthew Piper —
Washington State at Utah
O Saturday, 6 p.m.
TV • Pac-12 Network