The numbers are staggering.
The Utes allowed Kansas State to run all over Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday, racking up 472 rushing yards — over a quarter-mile of offense. No Big 12 team had allowed that many yards in a decade, not since 2014.
Somehow, the Utes won anyway: 51-47. Wow.
“If you’d have said we’re going to give up nearly 500 yards rushing and win the game, I’d say you’re crazy,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said. “That doesn’t happen.”
The first half, especially, seemed beyond reality. The 348 yards the Wildcats ran in those first two quarters were more than a Whittingham-led team had ever allowed in a whole game, let alone one half of one. The Utes are typically stout run defenders; this was abysmal.
It was enough to cause Whittingham to “light into,” in his words, both his team and his coaching staff at halftime. “There’s times to coddle and there’s times to get after them. I felt that was time to do that,” he said.
You can see what happened in one of Kansas State running back Joe Jackson’s rushing touchdowns at the end of the first half. As one Utes defensive end, Logan Fano, rushed the play, he focused on attacking Wildcats quarterback Avery Johnson, meaning no defensive support on the right side of the field. One simple cutback got Jackson free with just one safety to beat in open field — which Jackson did.
“It was the power run game, just basic power play. And it was an A-gap power play, where they start strong side, cut it back, and we continually didn’t defend it the right way,” Whittingham said.
Contrast that with a similar play earlier in the quarter; a similar rush right up the middle that didn’t even require a cutback. On fourth-and-one, Utah safety Tao Johnson pushed up to the line to prevent the run bouncing out to the outside — but there was absolutely zero help up the middle to stop the run for another easy touchdown.
“We were out of square. We were losing gaps, and so obviously we didn’t do a good enough job as coaches to get them ready to play,” Whittingham admitted. “It was that one play that did the majority of the damage and they just ran it over and over.”
“It was just simple things that just kept snowballing and snowballing,” linebacker Lander Barton said.
The Utes didn’t totally figure it out in the second half — another field-long run for a touchdown was only saved by a Kansas State holding penalty midway through the scamper.
But when absolutely necessary, Utah stopped breaking. A three-and-out was necessary with 2 minutes left in order to give quarterback Devon Dampier and the Utes’ offense another chance. And finally, on this final possession, the Utes got their stop.
We know what happened next: The Utes received the ensuing punt and, four plays later, got their own 58-yard run, this one from Dampier. The last one was the one that mattered most.
“It was just one of those games where stuff happens,“ Whittingham said. ”You can’t script it. You couldn’t make that up."