After an emotionally draining loss to Washington, the Utes have to pick themselves up off the mat — but can they?

Seattle • In a makeshift postgame interview room near the loading docks inside Husky Stadium, Kyle Whittingham spoke softly. On the other side of the drapes not too far away, game-day staff members could be overheard reliving the final two minutes of a game and result that was, in a sense, a mirror image of Utah’s 2017 season.

Close, right there on the edge of making such necessary headway.

Close isn’t enough.

And against the No. 16-ranked Washington Huskies Saturday, it wasn’t, even though the Utes were there in the driver’s seat after playing their best first 58 minutes of the season. But instead of the upset, instead of piling onto the Huskies’ sudden woes, instead of Utah running to the southeast corner of Husky Stadium to celebrate with their fans, stadium staffers were overheard as Whittingham attempted to sum up how things went south so swiftly in a mighty collapse.

“Overall, disappointment,” Whittingham said, “sitting here at 5-6.”

On a night Whittingham rolled the dice successfully on five earlier occasions setting the Utes up perfectly for the upset win, it was the last risk — the controversial late timeout that allowed the Huskies to get into field-goal range for the game-winning kick — that very well could become the talking point of the season.

“It was just the coach’s decision,” said sophomore Julian Blackmon said. “We weren’t really sure what was going on with the timeout when it happened, but yeah.”

Yep.

Considering the Husky Stadium atmosphere and the way things were going prior to Saturday, Utah’s offensive display against the Huskies was wasted.

HIs legs sprawled out in a chair after arguably his best outing of his young career, sophomore quarterback Tyler Huntley said what he had to, knowing that the win, that bowl eligibility, that a happy flight home to Salt Lake City was right there.

“We didn’t do enough,” he said after piling 341 yards of total offense on the Huskies, “we still left a lot of points on the field.”

Now, all that’s left for the Utes to do is pick themselves off the mat.

Will they? Or, more importantly, can they?

Earlier this season, Whittingham spoke of the emotional hangover after back-to-back close losses to Stanford and USC in October, of how they lingered into the following weeks. Utah has one game left, at home against Colorado, a night it will honor a senior class that helped it win plenty of games in the Pac-12 along the way.

“They’re resilient,” Whittingham said, “and I believe they’ll bounce back.”

In a season that has seen its share of setbacks and rough patches, losses like Saturday are as Whittingham explained postgame, the most difficult to overcome, “I would say yeah.” Asked if this is among the tougher stretches — six losses in their last seven — of his 13 seasons as a head coach, Whittingham responded quietly.

“Yeah, it is definitely,” he said. “It’s definitely up there. This profession can just grind you up and spit you out.”

Blackmon said he and his teammates must use the effort and getting so close to that upset win as fuel for the regular season finale against the Buffaloes, who like the Utes, are 5-6 and must win to become bowl eligible.

“Honestly, with our guys, it just makes us want to win this next game more, especially coming off of a game like that,” he said. “I felt like we played well as a group, but we just didn’t come out with a W, but I believe that if we play the way we played today next week, we can come out with a … victory.”

Glass-half full, no doubt.

There was the flip side, too.

After one of his best nights at Utah with two touchdowns receptions, wide receiver Raelon Singleton summarized the mood of the group after the loss. The junior wideout shrugged his shoulders before quickly responding, “[The look on] my face.”