Utah football: Ute defense needs to raise its game — starting next week

Giving up 16 points should hardly set off alarms with sirens and flashing lights, but at the same time the Utah defense sets a high bar for itself. Thursday night in a win, that unit came up a little shy of its lofty standards.

The Utes held North Dakota to 238 yards of total offense — just 92 in the first half — and didn’t give up a touchdown until the fourth quarter of a 37-16 season-opening win in front of the 45th-consecutive sellout crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Even in a win, though, the Utes saw aspects of their traditionally-stellar defense that needed significant improvement heading into what figures to be a heated rivalry game next weekend against BYU in Provo.

“A lot of credit to North Dakota, but we’re going to face better receivers, better teams, and there’s some things we’ve got to clean up,” junior strong safety Chase Hansen said.

The Utes also held one of the top rushing attacks in Football Championship Subdivision last season (208.4 yards per game), which returned four starting linemen and two all-conference running backs — to a measly 51 yards on 28 carries.

However, the Utes didn’t suffocate this FCS opponent the way they’ve done in the past. They also gave up some big plays (five plays of 15 yards or more), forced only one turnover, and didn’t display the pass rush typically associated with their “Sack Lake City” moniker.

“We’re known for sacks and takeaways, we only had one of each tonight,” Utes coach Kyle Whittingham said. “That’s got to change. We’ve got to be better on defense at those havoc plays. That’s our M.O., that’s what we’ve done for a lot years — take the ball away and sack the quarterback.”

While the Utes narrowly missed an interception in the closing seconds of the first half – the ball squirted away from Julian Blackmon as he hit the ground – their only sack came against North Dakota’s backup quarterback with less than six minutes remaining and the outcome decided.

The Utes gave up pass plays of 20, 32 and 41 yards, including a pair of big plays when North Dakota quarterback Keaton Studsrud evaded the pass rush long enough for his receivers to slip past their defenders into open spaces. That does raise some concern for a team that relies on being able to put its defensive backs on an island one-on-one.

“We came off coverage a couple times on defense that hurt us,” Whittingham said. “That’s the one touchdown they got, when we came off coverage one of the couple times. Can’t do that. As much man coverage as we play, we’ve got to stay on coverage and faster. When that quarterback scrambles around and the play extends, we’ve got to stay on coverage.”

While North Dakota couldn’t find any sort of consistent running room against the stout defensive front for the Utes, the scrappy visitors passed for 136 yards and one touchdown in the second half.

There has been much discussion throughout the preseason about the Utah secondary replacing four players who went on to the NFL (two draft picks). The new faces in prominent roles — including Casey Hughes, Jaylon Johnson, Marquis Blair and Blackmon — performed well for the most part. Yet, giving up large chunks of yardage against North Dakota certainly leaves the secondary open to questions about its readiness for higher-level opponents.

“We just made a few mistakes, and that’s stuff that we can’t really have against tougher competition,” Hansen said. “That’s something we’ve just got to figure out. They really stuck to their game plan, credit to them. They wanted to bang, and they banged. You know, our D-line is really good at that so that wasn’t bad for the first half. They pulled out a few nifty things and it worked, so there are just some things we’ve got to do better on.”