The No. 10 Utah Utes traveled to Corvallis to take on the Oregon State Beavers on Friday night, suffering their first loss of the season, 21-7. It’s no secret that the Utes are riddled with injuries and just when it couldn’t seem to get any worse, the team suffered even more setbacks and struggled to compete against Oregon State.

Early on, Utah found themselves trailing 7-0 and were unable to ever get things going offensively. Despite a last ditch effort and a 41 yard touchdown late in the game by Thomas Yassmin, the Utes were unable to make a comeback. Utah mustered just 198 yards of total offense and sustained several more injuries in the loss.

Let’s hand out our game balls:

Offense:

If you could describe the Utes offense in one word in this game it would simply be "ugly." With that being said, this game ball goes to receiver Silas Bolden and a well coached Beavers offense. Usually during losses, we aim to give a Utah player credit and a game ball, but that’s difficult to do after this performance.

Bolden was unstoppable against Utah, with 153 total yards, 100 receiving and 53 rushing. He added two touchdowns and some jaw-dropping catches.

Bolden gets the offensive game ball, but he was one of many Beaver standouts.

On the very first drive, quarterback DJ Uiagalele would rush for 17 yards to the Utah 48. After two incomplete passes and on 3rd and 10, Uiagalelei connected a 16 yard pass to Bolden down into Utah territory to keep the drive alive. Damian Martinez would then finish things off with three consecutive carries for 27 yards and a touchdown.

Into the second half, the Beavers would find the end zone twice and effectively put the game out of reach. Early in the third, Uiagalele connected with Silas Bolden for a 27 yard touchdown to make it a two score game. Shortly after, Bolden found a sizable gap and proceeded to take it 45 yards for another Beaver touchdown.

Uiagalelei would finish the night throwing for 204 yards and touchdown on 14 of 25 passing. The Beavers were successful in sustaining both the run and passing game to pick up the game ball.

Defense:

This is also a section where it’s tough to give a game ball, so instead let’s highlight the defensive performances.

Hands down Utah’s defense has been the key to Utah’s success this season, but they can’t continue to do it all by themselves. Amid offensive struggles, the defense held it down and kept the Beavers scoreless in the second quarter, but to keep that same energy throughout the game was nearly impossible without enough time off the field to rest.

Sione Vaki led the defense with nine tackles, seven solo and 3.5 tackles for loss. Jonah Elliss continues to be a dominating force off the edge as he added six tackles, two sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss.

Unfortunately, despite an impressive early performance from Logan Fano, the young defensive end was forced to leave the game early with injury. After sacking backup Aiden Chiles for a loss of nine, Fano tried standing up but quickly went back down with an apparent leg injury, clearly in discomfort.

Without a doubt the defense deserves better than what the offense has been able to do.

Utah heads into the bye week before hosting California at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Oct. 14th.