Oregon
Utah faces turning point after humbling loss to Oregon at home
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SALT LAKE CITY — It’s a game that never happened … at least if you ask any Utah fan around the time it was supposedly played.
Riding an 8-0 record and a No. 6 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25, Utah was in its last season of the Mountain West Conference and welcomed ESPN College GameDay to Salt Lake City ahead of a showdown against No. 4 TCU at Rice-Eccles Stadium in 2010.
There was excitement in the air as the college football universe fixated on Utah for one afternoon — a not as common occurrence for Utah as much as the present.
That excitement lasted all of five minutes of game time, though. TCU quarterback Andy Dalton connected with Josh Boyce for a 26-yard touchdown in what started a 40-0 run over three quarters of play. On the next series, Dalton upped the ante and connected with Boyce again, but this time for a 93-yard score.
Utah had no answer for TCU that afternoon and lost 47-7 in one of the most lopsided affairs in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Kyle Whittingham’s tenure as a head coach.
So why rehash a game that brought so much pain to Utah fans, especially one that never happened?
It’s the closest example Whittingham could point to after his team was “soundly” beat Saturday by a highly-ranked Oregon team. (The 2023 loss also happened to come in Utah’s last season of its current conference and featured College GameDay ahead of a 1:30 p.m. MDT kickoff on a network outside of ESPN).
“I don’t want to diminish what (Oregon) did today at all because the score wasn’t indicative — the game was a mismatch,” Whittingham said Saturday. “It was worse than what the score indicated. And so we kind of regroup, pick ourselves up and get back on track.
“We have a lot of players in that locker room that are very disappointed, obviously. We’ve just got to come back,” he added. “Sometimes you get knocked on your butt in life and you’ve got to pick yourself up and come back, regroup and just figure things out and get things going next week. So that’s where we’re at right now. We still have a lot of football left.”
Whittingham isn’t ready to throw in the towel after one loss, but it becomes an inflection point as to where Utah can be following a loss in a game where the team was outclassed in all facets of the game.
Injuries are most certainly a contributing factor as Utah continues to work through a multitude of season-ending injuries to key players, but it’s not the excuse Whittingham is using to lay blame for the loss Saturday. That same team — minus linebacker Lander Barton — went on the road and beat USC and the reigning Heisman Trophy winner in the LA Memorial Coliseum.
Injuries are a factor, but not the factor as to why Utah lost Saturday.
“I never want to play that card,” Whittingham said. “Whatever you’ve got available, you’ve got to figure it out and make the most of what you’ve got available. Certainly, we’re missing a lot of good players that we wish we had, but a lot of teams in the country are in the same boat and there’s teams that are missing a lot of players, as well.”
So don’t expect Whittingham to point to injuries as a cause anytime soon.
Whittingham expects his team to bounce back and show some resolve for the final four games of the season. It’s now where he and the coaching staff see if they have a team worthy of fighting to the bitter end, even if a three-peat seems out of reach.
It’s these types of moments that have often defined Whittingham-led teams, and were key turning points in the 2021 and 2022 seasons to help Utah claim back-to-back Pac-12 titles after early-season adversity.
While the 2023 campaign has seemingly more obstacles in Utah’s path (the Utes can still, technically, reach the Pac-12 championship game), it’s a matter of character for Whittingham, regardless of how the season ends or where the team ends up in the postseason.
“Adversity and tough times like this reveal character,” Whittingham said. “I believe we’ve got a lot of character in our room, in our locker room, and a lot of guys that are very prideful and will come back and respond and work even harder this week, and work to get back on track.
“But when you get beat like that, you don’t want to go in and berate your team and brow beat them. What happened out there was enough, and so you’ve just got to let them know you still believe in them, which I do, believe in the coaches. I mean, it’s one football game and you don’t want to overreact, but we didn’t play very well.”
The sulking and disappointment ended Saturday night for Whittingham; now, it’s time to see how his team reacts Monday and beyond to the adversity.