What a crazy outcome. I predicted a win where Utah scored a lot of points, but I thought Oregon would keep up with them. I did not see that coming. Utah demolished Oregon, leading 28-0 at halftime before winning 38-7. Utah outgained Oregon 386-294, demolished them 208-63 in rush yards, and held the ball for 35:27. Utah went 11/14 (78.6%) on 3rd down while holding Oregon to 6/14 (42.9%) and 0/2 on 4th down. I will point out now that Oregon actually made Utah work very hard to blow them out, which is a strange thing to write, but it’s true, as we’ll see below.

Let’s take a look at individual players. First the offense (in snap order except the OL):

Quarterback

Rising: Rising was 53.1 this week on 71 snaps. His stats weren’t fantastic this week overall, going 10/18 (55.6%) for 178 yards (9.9 ypa) with 0 TD and 1 “turnover-worthy” throw. He also ran 5 times for 8 yards (1.6 ypc) with 1 TD plus a fumble (that luckily Utah recovered). The stats clearly don’t tell the whole story, as the third down percentage I pointed out above shows. He made all the plays he needed to make when Utah needed them most.

Running Backs

Thomas: Thomas was rated 65.4 on 29 snaps and went 21/94 (4.5 ypc) with 3 TD. These are average stats for Thomas, but he broke Utah’s single-season touchdown record this week, and now has 17 touchdowns on the season, with 3 games to go.