Utes Look for Tenth Straight Win Over BYU
The Utah Utes are on the road for their first away game of the season. They don’t have to travel far though as they will be taking on the BYU Cougars tonight in Provo at 8:15 PM.
With all the history between these two teams, this game has a lot of emotion behind it. BYU is headed to the Big 12 and the PAC-12 has joined the College Football Alliance with the ACC and Big 10. For the next two years, Utah will be playing Florida in lieu of BYU. With out-of-conference scheduling uncertain for both teams in the future, this game will leave Utah looking to notch a tenth straight win over BYU heading into the break.
Despite all of this, Kyle Whittingham is unconcerned with the emotions behind the game and is more focused on preparation.
“We are just approaching it like we do every year and pretty much every game. Preparation will be the key,” Whittingham stated, “It is not the emotional part of it or how many wins in a row or any of that stuff. You have to prepare the right way and that’s your best chance to win a game, is through preparation.”
Coach Whittingham has also been helping his players focus on their preparation rather than the win streak.
“I just tell them the key is going to be preparing the right way. You prepare hard and you play hard. In simplistic terms, that’s what you do,” Whittingham declared, “That’s not only on the field but in the film room and weight room plus everything that comes with it. Getting your rest and hydration. There is a ton of different aspects to preparation and you’ve got to pay attention to all of them, and then on game day, you’ve got to play hard.”
A big part of Utah’s preparation this week is preparing to limit BYU quarterback Jaren Hall’s mobility in his second start.
“There is not a lot of drop-back pass in the game. It’s play-action boots and that type of thing. Getting (Hall) outside the pocket. He’s a guy that has good speed and his mobility is really good,” Whittingham said, “I thought he did a nice job managing the game for them (last) Saturday.”
This will provide a test for Utah’s young edge rushers.
“On the edge, it does (adjust their job), not internally, but on the edge, you try to get the guy pulled up and not let him just have 3-4 seconds to do his thing,” Whittingham shared, “You’ve got to try to do as good a job as you can keeping him contained.”
On the offensive side of things, Utah hopes to have improved performance from their offensive line.
“I thought there was room there (for improvement),” Whittingham noted, “I’m not picking on them because every position has room for improvement but I think we can be better than we were Thursday night and I expect that we will become better. That old adage of making the most improvement between games one and two has got to show up for us this week because we have to play better this week than we did last week.”
Utah is also hoping for another big game from Dalton Kincaid and the rest of the tight-end group as well.
“(Kincaid) is a terrific athlete, a tough matchup, and that tight end crew is really effective with him, Cole Fotheringham, and Kuithe,” Whittingham said, “He made some catches and some plays that highlighted his athleticism and what his capabilities are and hopefully we see a lot of that all year long”.
It’s almost time for another action-packed in state-game where Utah will look to notch their tenth straight win. If BYU can’t break the streak, they’ll have a long time to sit back and stew over it.