The University of Utah faced former conference foe San Diego State on Saturday and got revenge in a convincing fashion for last season’s 33-31 triple-overtime loss. The Utes dominated after a slow start, winning 35-7 and going to 2-1 on the season.
Let’s take a look at the individual scores, offense first.
QB - Rising: 77.6 (#1) on 61 snaps. Rising went 18/30 (60.0%) for 224 yards (7.5 ypa) with 4 TD and 0 INT. Rising had a pretty good game after a very slow start (he started 4/14 for 39 yards in the first quarter before going 14/16 for 185 yards and 4 TD the rest of the way)
Barnes also played 9 snaps but didn’t attempt a pass.
RB - Thomas: 60.8 on 31 snaps. Thomas had a pretty slow day for him, going 16/59 (3.7 ypc) with 1 TD. Thomas was grieving a death in his family this week, which may have affected both his preparation and focus, understandably.
RB - Bernard: 62.9 on 27 snaps. Bernard had a little bit better rushing day than Thomas, going 5/44 (8.8 ypc) but didn’t reach the endzone.
RB - Glover: 70.1 (#5) on 12 snaps. Glover went 9/34 (3.8 ypc) but was the highest-rated RB of the game and showed why Utah fans are so excited to see him.
The running game struggled a little bit, requiring 38 carries to get 174 yards (4.6 ypc). The worst thing was the loss of Chris Curry for the remainder of the season to an injury.
TE - Kincaid: 56.9 on 58 snaps. 3 catches on 3 targets for 38 yards (12.7 ypc).
WR - Vele: 70.7 (#3) on 56 snaps. Vele had 3 catches on 4 targets for 38 yards (12.7 ypc) and 2 TD. This is one of Vele’s best scores as a Ute, and hopefully we see even more multiple-TD games from him going forward.
WR - Enis: 67.3 on 46 snaps. 3 catches on 5 targets for 35 yards (11.7 ypc) and a TD. .
TE - Kuithe: 63.8 on 44 snaps. on 35 snaps. 5 catches on 10 targets with 1 drop for 65 yards (12.8 ypc) with 1 TD.
WR - Parks: 56.8 on 23 snaps. Targeted once but no catches.
TE - Kendall: 57.1 on 18 snaps. No targets.
Only Vele was rated well among the pass-catchers, but again that’s likely because of the slow offensive start to the first quarter. One note, Dixon started but only played 6 snaps, so I didn’t include him above, although in those 6 snaps he had 1 rushing attempt for 22 yards and 1 catch for 13.
LT - Daniels: 72.9 (#2) on 61 snaps, better pass blocking (89.3) than run blocking (62.9).
LG - Bills: 63.5 on 61 snaps, also better at pass blocking (74.2) than run blocking (60.5)
C - Maile: 68.4.4 on 61 snaps, again better at pass blocking (73.0) than run blocking (65.0)
RG - Mokofisi: 55.9 on 61 snaps, unusually much worse at pass blocking (37.0) than run blocking (58.3)
RT - Laumea: 66.2 on 61 snaps, just like last week, he rated higher at run blocking (65.9) than pass blocking (62.1).
That’s the starting OL, who all played solid according to PFF standards, except Mokofisi.
As we all know, the offense started very slow, but ended up okay, with 398 total yards (174 rushing and 224 passing) and 35 points.
Now let’s take a look at the defense:
DT- Tafuna: 76.5 (#3) on 40 snaps. Tafuna had 3 QB pressures, 2 tackles, and 1 TFL.
DT - Vimahi: 55.4 on 33 snaps. Vimahi had 1 tackle and 0.5 TFL last week.
DE - O’Toole: 67.3 on 33 snaps. O’Toole had 1 QB pressure and 2 tackles.
DE - G Reid: 88.7 (#2) on 32 snaps. Reid had 4 QB pressures, 7 tackles, 1 TFL.
DE - Elliss: 69.5 on 27 snaps, he had 1 QB pressure, 2 tackles, and 0.5 TFL.
DE - Fillinger: 75.3 (#4) on 20 snaps, he had 3 QB pressures, 2 tackles, 1.5 TFL, 1.5 sacks.
DT - Kaufusi: 56.1 on 19 snaps. 2 tackles.
DT - Pepa: 64.6 on 18 snaps. 3 tackles.
DE - Suguturaga: 72.6 (#7) on 16 tackles. 1 QB pressure, 1 tackle.
As always, a good amount of rotation on the DL. Reid had an amazing game, but came in second due to his brother absolutely smashing it this week. When the DL has 4 players above 70, and two more just below 70, Utah’s going to win a lot of games.
LB - Barton: 67.6 on 43 snaps, Barton had 1 QB pressure, 4 tackles, and 0.5 TFL.
LB - Karene Reid: 92.4 (#2) on 36 snaps. He had 2 QB pressures, 4 tackles, 1.5 TFL, 0.5 sacks, and that great INT. He also gave up 0 catches on 2 targets.
LB - Mata’afa: 67.2 on 23 snaps, Mata’afa had 1 tackle.
LB - Medlock: 65.4 on 22 snaps, Medlock had 1 QB pressure but no tackles.
Reid played great and the rest of the LBs were solid. Overall a good day for the middle of the defense.
CB - Broughton: 52.7 on 44 snaps. 2 tackles, 1 missed, and gave up 1 reception on 3 targets.
CB - Vaughn: 67.5 on 41 snaps. 1 tackle and 2 PBU, Vaughn allowed only 1 reception on 6 targets (16.7%). Vaughn went from the least snaps last week to the second most this week among the corners, largely because he stepped in when CPIII got hurt.
CB - Mataele: 74.9 (#6) on 30 snaps. 2 tackles and gave up 1 reception on 1 target.
CB - Phillips: 65.9 on 20 snaps. 1 tackle and gave up 1 reception on 1 target. Phillips went out early with an injury, but Whittingham said yesterday that he’s expected back against ASU this week.
The corners had a pretty good week by PFF standards, except for Broughton who got severely dinged for poor tackling. Vaughn stepped up admirably into Phillips’ role when he got hurt.
SS - Bishop: 75.1 (#5) on 38 snaps. He had 9 tackles (1 missed), 1 QB pressure, 0.5 TFL and gave up 1 catch on 2 targets.
FS - Hubert: 60.2 on 38 snaps. He had 3 tackles and wasn’t targeted.
SS - Vaki: 63.2 on 20 snaps. 1 tackle, 1 forced fumble, wasn’t targeted.
FS - Isbell: 50.8 on 20 snaps. 1 tackle (1 missed), wasn’t targeted.
Bishop had a good game, the rest of the safeties were okay, but not great by PFF standards. Isbell, like Broughton, got dinged for poor tackling.
The defense as a whole played great, holding SDSU to 3/15 on 3rd down, 173 total yards (only 60 yards passing and 113 rushing) and forcing two turnovers. If not for the muffed punt return, this almost certainly would have been a shutout.
Utah played very well this week, although the slow start on offense has become an unfortunate tendency in 2022. Still, the defense basically pitched a shutout and getting revenge against SDSU is nice. Although, it’s quite clear that this year’s SDSU squad still has a lot of work to do to be competitive.
