Utah will have to disrupt West Virginia’s top-ranked offense if it wants to win the Heart of Dallas Bowl

Dallas • West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen sat at the dais and quipped sarcastically that with the vast amount of time since the end of the season he’d installed three or four new offenses to accommodate his backup quarterback taking over as the starter.

The Utes’ hopes of defeating the Mountaineers (7-5) in the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl at 11:30 a.m. MST Tuesday, finishing the season with a winning record and capturing a fifth consecutive postseason victory likely hinges largely on their ability to disrupt Mountaineers signal caller Chris Chugunov in his second collegiate start.

“We have all of about eight practices,” Holgorsen said. “In all honestly, it has been good for Chugs. Chugs has been at West Virginia for three years, so it’s not like he doesn’t know the offense. The biggest thing is understanding he is the starting quarterback and when you have these practices you have to develop some timing with the guys that he’s going to actually be throwing to. You can’t really flip that switch right at beginning of the second quarter against Texas.”

Chugunov, a redshirt sophomore, will enter the game having thrown 21 pass attempts as a Mountaineer. The Utes (6-6) know that Chugunov will be more prepared for this game than any other he’s played and armed with a game plan tailored to his strengths.

More importantly, Chugunov will have a bevy of weapons around him as he takes control one of the top offenses in college football (18th-best scoring offense, 14th-most yards per game). It won’t hurt that his offensive coordinator, Jake Spavital, has matched wits with Utah in each of the previous two seasons when he held the same position for Pac-12 member California.

The Mountaineers offense passed for 300 yards in nine games and also rushed for more than 200 yards in six games. The unit gained 500 yards or more of total offense six times this season. While starting quarterback Will Grier will miss the game due to a hand injury, Chugunov will have two primary targets who finished this season among top 30 in FBS in receiving yards in juniors Gary Jennings (1,030, 21^st) and David Sills (980 yards, 28^th).

Sills, a Biletnikoff Award finalist, earned first-team All-Big-12 honors as well as All-American accolades from several organizations, including the Associated Press, Walter Camp Football Foundation, the American Football Coaches Association and The Sporting News. Jennings was a second-team all-conference selection.

“What stands out is they catch the ball,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of the Mountaineers receivers. “They catch every ball thrown to them. It’s impressive if you watch. Their route structure is very good, obviously, and precise. But [what stands out is] just the way they catch the ball, very few drops.”

Relying on what has been a significantly improved pass rush of late will play a big part of the formula for getting that Mountaineers offense out of sync. It will also take pressure off of a young secondary that sustained multiple injuries late in the season. Freshman cornerback Jaylon Johnson will not play in the bowl game.

The Utes defense produced just seven sacks in the first seven Pac-12 games, but it manged to crank up the heat and record seven in the past two conference games against Washington and Colorado.

Sophomore defensive end Bradlee Anae got into the backfield for four sacks in those final two games. He finished the regular season with a team-high seven sacks. His task won’t be easy in this game as Churgunov’s backside will also be protected All-Big 12 left tackle Yodny Cajuste.

“You’ve got to try to rattle the new guy,” Utes senior defensive tackle Filipo Mokofisi said. “You want to put pressure on him, make him feel uncomfortable, make him feel like he hasn’t been there before. I feel like we pressured a lot more these last two games than we have all year. I think that’s the reason why we got to the quarterback more.”