Now Utes fans know how ASU fans felt after the game two Saturdays ago. Great first half from Utah, terrible second half. Here’s how PFF graded Utah’s players.

First the offense (in snap order except the OL):

Quarterbacks

Rising: Rising was 70.9 (#4 on the offense) on 79 snaps. He went 22/36 (61.1%) for 267 yards (7.4 ypa) with 4 TD. He also ran 10 times for 73 yards. This is an okay stat line, but certainly not his best and what it looked like it was about to be, early on in the matchup.

Running Backs

Thomas: Thomas was 79.4 (#1 on the offense) on 28 snaps. He had 21 carries for 74 yards (3.5 ypc) with 2 TD.

Pledger: Pledger was 61.5 on 28 snaps. He had 4 carries for 24 yards (6.0 ypc).

Bernard: Bernard was 71.2 (#3 on the offense) on 23 snaps. He had 2 carries for 16 yards (8.0 ypc), but had 3 catches for 23 yards (7.7 ypc) and 1 TD.

Thomas, Pledger, and Bernard had nearly equal number of snaps this week (28, 28, and 23), but Thomas had almost all of the carries (21, 4, 2).

Wide Receivers

Vele: 61.4 on 65 snaps. He had 3 catches on 4 targets for 69 yards (23.0 ypc).

Covey: 71.8 (#2 on the offense) on 42 snaps. He had 5 catches on 8 targets for 40 yards (8.0 ypc). He also had 2 carries for 8 yards.

Enis: 60.2 on 25 snaps. He had 1 catch on 1 targets for 15 yards (15.0 ypc)

Covey had a decent game, the other WRs were average. Howard also played (9 snaps; 1 catch for 7 yards), as did Parks (8 snaps, no catches), O’Toole (4 snaps), and Dixon (1 snap, 1 catch for 29 yards)

Tight Ends

Kincaid: 68.0 on 60 snaps. Had 2 catches on 4 targets for 55 yards (27.5 ypc).

Fotheringham: 56.4 on 49 snaps. 2 catches on 2 targets for 11 yards (5.5 ypc).

Kuithe: 51.5 on 47 snaps. Had 3 catches on 6 targets for 13 yards (4.3 ypc) and 1 TD with 1 drop.

Kincaid was okay, the other two were below average. It wasn’t the best day for Utah’s elite TEs.

Offensive Line

Ford: #1 OL, Ford was 67.9 on 79 snaps. 80.7 pass blocking and 62.8 run blocking.

Laumea: #2 OL, Laumea was 66.9 on 79 snaps. 52.0 pass blocking and 69.6 run blocking.

Daniels: #3 OL, Daniels was 53.7 on 79 snaps. 40.9 pass blocking and 57.7 run blocking plus one penalty.

Bills: #4 OL, Bills was 53.1 on 79 snaps. 37.1 pass blocking and 54.1 run blocking.

Olaseni: #5 OL, Bam was 50.9 on 79 snaps. 59.7 pass blocking and 51.8 run blocking plus 1 penalty.

The starting OL all played every single snap, just like last week, but did not play very well.

Now for the defense (each position is listed in order of score, as long as they have at least 15 snaps):

Defensive Ends

Tafua. 80.3 (#1 on defense) on 61 snaps. 6 tackles, 2 TFL, 1 sack, 1 FF, and 3 QB pressures.

Fillinger: 63.7 on 48 snaps. This is a significant improvement over last week. 3 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 1 QB pressure, 2 missed tackles.

Tafua had a great game and Fillinger was okay, although he had a couple of missed tackles.

Defensive Tackles

H Pututau: 72.4 (#3 on defense) on 40 snaps. Nothing on the stat sheet though.

Tafuna: 54.2 on 48 snaps. 1 tackle.

Vimahi: 38.4 on 20 snaps. 1 tackle.

Hauati had a great game, despite not showing up on the stat sheet. The other tackles struggled, as we all could see. Kaufusi was just under the snap cutoff (14) but he also scored poorly (48.8)

Linebackers

Sewell: 77.5 (#2 on the defense) on 47 snaps. Sewell seems to be healthy again. 7 tackles.

Lloyd: 57.3 on 41 snaps. 7 tackles, 1 QB pressure. This is his worse score this year.

Furey: 51.7 on 16 snaps. Nothing on the stat sheet.

Reid: 50.1 on 61 snaps. 7 tackles, 3 missed tackles.

Sewell played well, the rest of the linebackers did not.

Corners

Phillips: 64.9 on 61 snaps. Gave up 3 catches on 5 targets, 7 tackles, 1 missed tackle.

Vaughn: 58.4 on 38 snaps. Gave up 1 catch on 1 target, 3 tackles.

Marks: 34.1 on 34 snaps. Gave up 3 catches on 4 targets, 3 tackles and 2 missed tackles.

The corners had pretty good PFF numbers except for Vaughn. The eyeball test definitely showed though that the Beavers hit some bug and crucial throws.

Safeties

Davis: 69.2 on 32 snaps. 3 tackles.

McKinney: 60.6 on 61 snaps. Had 8 tackles, 1 FF, 1 QB pressure, 3 missed tackles, and gave up 3 catches on 3 targets.

Latu: 44.6 on 29 snaps. 2 tackles, 3 missed tackles.

The defense played poorly, as 35 points given up already made clear (I won’t count the blocked punt points against them). There were 16 missed tackles this week, which is the most of any game this year except for ASU last week (and they played 11 more snaps last week).

Utah is extremely inconsistent this year on both sides of the ball. Different players and positions have good games and bad games from week to week. Last game turned into a bad one, after the first half. Come this Saturday against UCLA, Utah will be looking to put a full four quarters together.