The first one was this: For the final time as league foes, Utah and USC stared one another down, beat one another up, on a football field — unless, as Kyle Whittingham recently hinted at, and apparently insulted and ticked off all of the Big 12 in the process, the Utes get amalgamated into the Big Ten at some juncture in the seasons ahead.
What was trippy about the scene at the Coliseum was that this was the stadium where and this was the opponent who the Utes faced in their first Pac-12 game in 2011. Time is funny because, like a lot of things, all things, measured by the calendar, in some ways that seems like yesterday and in other ways it seems a distant memory.
So much has happened to Utah football over that span, bridging a canyon from trying desperately in that first game to prove itself against the conference’s longtime glamor team to having conquered the conference’s longtime glamor team, to the extent and extreme where USC sought competitive revenge against the Utes here.
There are worse ways to gauge the growth, the breadth and depth of a program than by leaning and sizing it up against the Trojans. And after suffering defeat in that initial game some 12 years back, the one after which then-quarterback Jordan Wynn correctly said, “There’s no happiness in a loss,” that lean has been favorable for Utah, as demonstrated by last season’s two-win run over USC, including one for the Pac-12 title and an invite to the Rose Bowl.
Utah is nobody’s underling, not anymore, and Ute happiness abounds.
As arrogant as those in and around Trojan football can be, it had gotten to the point where if you sneaked up behind an SC fan and whispered, “Utah Utes,” they’d either jump or slump. After three consecutive early losses to the Trojans in its new league, Utah since then had traded victories with them, but over the last three meetings, the Utes had not tasted defeat.
Make it four straight now, as the Utes downed the Trojans, 34-32, on this night, this time, giving clear evidence that Utah football is, in fact, superior to USC football. Not by much, but by enough. Write it down, highlight it, realize it, understand it.
Utah is flat better, tougher, more resilient. That part of the story is weird only to those who haven’t paid attention.
USC coach Lincoln Riley called the Utes “great competitors.” He also called the loss “gut-wrenching.”
But in another related bit of parallel oddity, in that first league game in Sept, 2011, the Utes had a chance to win or at least tie it, gaining the ball and driving the field, down by three points, in the final minute. They advanced from their own 33-yard line to the USC 24, from where they attempted a field goal with mere seconds on the clock, a field goal that was blocked and returned for a Trojan touchdown, leading to bitter defeat.
Twelve years later, Saturday night, on the same ground, in the Utah-USC league finale, the Utes gained the ball and drove the field, down one point, advancing to the USC 18-yard line, from where they attempted a field goal with three seconds on the clock, a field goal that was clean and right down the pipe, leading to sweet victory.
Whew.
The presumed most gripping part of this last game would come down to a collision of an explosive offense against a fierce defense, and everybody thought they knew what was what, whose was whose. On the flip-side, the Trojan’s D had been inept and Utah’s offense, without a certain injured star quarterback, had been equally tepid. Compelling matchups, then, all around.
The game started with a loud blast and burst, Utah scoring on its first drive with a deep ball from Bryson Barnes to Sione Vaki, the defensive back who continued his fresh role as an offensive force. It took USC less than two minutes to tie the count at 7, and, like that, the rip-roaring race was on.
Defense showed up later.
The Trojans took the lead after a sky-ball launched by Caleb Williams set up a touchdown for a 14-7 lead. NBD. Utah fired right back to score on a Barnes QB draw, answering the question with absolute certainty that this deal was going to be a gas to watch, even as the scoring slowed and then went throttle up.
The Utes put points on the board first in the back half, when Barnes hit Landen King for a touchdown. After that, and actually before, Utah’s stellar resistance put the hammer on Williams and his attack by way of pressuring the quarterback without having to commit additional resources to do it. Utah’s defensive front was beastly, and the rest of the crew cleaned up. A subsequent Barnes pass to Vaki, who made a sharp cut to find a path to the end zone, stretched the lead. A pick-6 on a bad read and throw by Barnes closed the gap to five early in the fourth quarter. A Utah field goal midway through that final period made the margin eight.
A drive led by Williams secured a field goal for USC with four minutes left, slicing the lead back to five. A long SC punt return set up a Williams touchdown scamper with 1:46 remaining, giving the Trojans their one-point lead.
Utah saw and captured its late chance, getting to midfield, then to the USC 42, then Barnes ran for 26 yards to the Trojan 19-yard line with five seconds left. Cole Becker’s clutch walk-off field goal won it.
So this was now.
Taking a moment to look back at then, at that first league game in the Coliseum, which Utah couldn’t close out, is useful in comparison to show the thoroughness of the Utes’ ascent. “We had plenty of chances, and we just didn’t take advantage of them,” said Wynn back then, frowning. “It’s never fun to lose that way. It’s never fun to lose, period.”
This time, after Becker drilled the game-winner, Whittingham looked into the TV camera, grinned, and said: “It was a gut-check. So proud of these guys. What a team. … What a team.”
A team that had so plainly strengthened its talent and its resolve. A team that had learned to win in a power conference.
Wait, there’s more — the second chunk of strangeness. As mentioned, Cam Rising didn’t play, again, and he didn’t need to. Here’s the thing, an odd one, indeed, given that the Utes are now 6-1 with more big games coming up, including a home contest against Oregon this next week and thereafter one against Washington in Seattle. At this point it doesn’t matter.
Barnes threw for 235 yards, three TDs and ran for 57 yards and another score, also suffering the aforementioned interception. More than that, he grabbed command of Utah’s attack with impressive poise, gaining his teammates’ admiration and confidence.
That’s one half of the situation. The other is what Whittingham addressed in the postgame, that Rising is done for the year. He will not, as had been assumed for a long stretch, be brought back as a season-saving reliever out of the bullpen, playing stone cold without having taken a snap all year. The question is now whether Rising will agree to a medical redshirt and return full strength for a full season in 2024.
That’s completely up to him.
Ordinarily, for a talented player with designs, realistic or otherwise, of playing in the NFL, that scenario would be a no-go. But in an age of NIL, where the quarterback is being financially rewarded for his efforts in college, and with no guarantees of actually making it, making money, in the pros, it likely will be seriously considered by the quarterback.
NFL vs. NIL.
If you were Rising, what would you choose? Would you stay or go? If you were Whittingham, would you embrace the uncertain promise of the return of a veteran leader for what might be, with good fortune and good health, a whole season? Or would you turn the page?
The former would be in the Utes’ best interests.
Those were the issues — and the context — of the scintillating night on S. Figueroa in Los Angeles, one issue wrapped up and solved, the other yet to be determined, both smiling on and at Utah, reminding all those who watched that the Utes are deep and determined, a grown-up program, that they now are a fine measure of any opponent, not the other way around.
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