Utah
Following win over Cal, Utah moves up to No. 14 in latest AP Top 25 rankings
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SALT LAKE CITY — A few bruised ribs weren’t enough to keep quarterback Bryson Barnes off the field Saturday afternoon.
Maybe it’s all the farm work he did back at home in Milford, Utah, but Barnes wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He certainly wasn’t going to remain on the sidelines and watch as Utah’s offense continued to stall and be a shell of itself from a season ago with Cam Rising under center.
“I wasn’t expecting to be back as soon as I was, but you’ve got to stay in that training room and make sure you’re getting right with your trainers,” Barnes said Saturday. “I was able to get back within a week, so I’m happy to be back out there.”
With a full week of getting the No. 1 reps, Barnes delivered and gave Utah’s offense a pulse, or as Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham called it, a “spark.”
(It also helped that he had two-way player Sione Vaki lining up in the backfield, too, but we digress.)
The spark lifted Utah to a 20-point victory over the visiting California Golden Bears, and also gave the Utes a boost in the latest Associated Press Top 25 rankings that were released Sunday afternoon. Utah moved up to No. 14, up two spots from last week’s spot at No. 16.
The Utes are one of six teams ranked from the Pac-12 this week, with Washington moving up two spots to No. 5 after its dramatic win over rival Oregon Saturday. The Ducks didn’t drop far with the loss and remain the second-highest ranked team in the conference at No. 9.
Behind Oregon is No. 12 Oregon State, No. 18 USC — who lost by double digits on the road to rival Notre Dame — and No. 25 UCLA. Washington State, which was previously ranked, dropped out after a blowout loss to Arizona.
The top of the rankings remained unchanged this with, with two-time reigning national champion Georgia as the No. 1 team with 43 first-place votes. Behind the Bulldogs is No. 2 Michigan (16 first-place votes), No. 3 Ohio State (1), No. 4 Florida State (1) and No. 5 Washington (2).