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After Morgan Scalley explained his reasoning for his team’s recent third-quarter offensive lulls, he gave a wink and a smile.

It’s safe to say that Scalley doesn’t share some Utah fans’ concerns over the second-half struggles.

“It’s not time to panic there,” Scalley said, showcasing a cheesy grin as he looked at the media members inside Utah’s Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Facility.

Scalley’s near-two-minute response on Utah’s last two second halves — both of which ended in wins over Utah State and Iowa State, mind you — holds some truth.

“Going back to Idaho — first drive of the second half, touchdown. Defense, first drive, three-and-out. Arkansas: first drive [of the] second half, touchdown. Defense, three-and-out.”

That wasn’t the case for the Utes against the Cyclones and Aggies.

In Utah’s first offensive drive out of the second half against USU, senior quarterback Devon Dampier rushed up the middle on fourth down but came up inches short of the line to gain, resulting in a turnover on downs. The next drive? A Dampier fumble.

It was a similar story against Iowa State. After the Cyclones drove and scored on the first drive of the second half, Utah punted on its next three offensive drives as the Cyclones trimmed the Utes’ lead to 24-17.

That was the one time Scalley felt his Utes were truly outplayed.

“I’ve mentioned this before: the burden of execution’s on the offense,” Scalley said. “You can have a guy wide open, and it’s a misread, or he drops the ball. Then penalties can also be a factor in that. So really, in my opinion, [we had] one game where you’re saying, ‘OK, we probably weren’t clean enough coming out of the half.’”

So is the antidote that simple? Execute a little more here. Catch a ball there. And that will completely fix the Utes’ third-quarter woes?

Maybe.

“We probably needed to get some adjustments to find something that could get us into a rhythm executionally and schematically, and then just try to lean on what’s working,” Utah OC Kevin McGiven said this week.

At points during the second half against the Cyclones, McGiven got away from handing the ball off to junior running back Wayshawn Parker. He had just two touches in the third quarter after he had 144 yards from scrimmage in the first half.

Once Utah went back to Parker, it retook a two-score advantage. He finished the game with 239 total yards and three touchdowns.

McGiven, though, said that “versatility” is Utah’s offensive identity, and he wants to balance getting the ball to the hot hand and feeding other contributors.

So don’t expect the Utes to force the ball to Parker over and over.

“I think the whole idea was being multiple and trying to distribute the football and getting everybody involved,” McGiven said. “[It’s about] making defenses have to defend the whole field and not knowing where the ball is going to land.”

Utah’s biggest strength may have been its biggest weakness in the third quarter against the Cyclones.

Now it’s about finding the right balance.

“I think where sometimes that gets lost is you go through a period of a game — like last game — where there were called runs where Wayshawn could have touched it, and [we] didn’t in the third quarter,” McGiven said. “That’s a delicate balance of trying to distribute, but also getting the playmakers up.”