BOULDER, Colo. — Last November, Utah and Colorado met for an unceremonious end to the regular season.

Both teams entered the game injured — the Utes missing at least 10 players with season-ending injuries, including quarterback Cam Rising, and the Buffaloes missing star quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

With Rising and Bryson Barnes out and Nate Johnson in the transfer portal, the Utes had to turn to Luke Bottari, who threw just 10 passes as Utah ran for 268 yards.

Meanwhile, Colorado gained just 37 yards on the ground, but a 195-yard, one touchdown performance from backup quarterback Ryan Staub made it close before Utah held on for a 23-17 victory to improve to 8-4. Colorado, in its first year under head coach Deion Sanders, fell to 4-8 on the season.

On Saturday in Boulder, the circumstances when the two schools meet are wildly different, except for Utah’s injuries, which continue to mount.

After a one-point, last-second loss to rival BYU, Utah enters Saturday’s matchup having lost five-straight games and don’t have a lot of answers, especially after quarterback Brandon Rose was ruled out for the season. The sophomore quarterback’s mother, Lorilyn, shared in a post on X that Rose suffered a Lisfranc injury just before halftime of the BYU game.

On his ESPN 700 coaches show, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said Rose will be out for six to eight months.

That leaves Isaac Wilson and Luke Bottari as the team’s only quarterbacks without a season-ending injury, though Utah added Santa Ana College transfer Dallen Engemann to the official roster this week in case of emergency — Engemann was a preferred walk-on.

Rose is the latest Ute to be out for the season, joining tight end Brant Kuithe, quarterback Cam Rising, quarterback Sam Huard, receiver Money Parks, cornerback Kenan Johnson, running back Anthony Woods and offensive guard Michael Mokofisi. Running back Jaylon Glover won’t play for the rest of the season as well, as he will redshirt the rest of the season to enter the transfer portal.

Colorado, meanwhile, is on the opposite trajectory. After a rough season last year, Sanders retooled the team once again in the transfer portal, bringing in 40 new transfers, and it’s paid off. The Buffaloes have already vastly improved from last season, becoming bowl eligible for the first time since 2016, and aren’t done yet.

At 7-2 (5-1 Big 12), if Colorado wins its next three games, starting against Utah, it will punch its ticket to the Big 12 championship game, with the winner of that contest getting a trip to the College Football Playoff.

Not bad for Year 2 of the Deion Sanders era in Boulder.

What’s been behind the turnaround?

Shedeur Sanders has been healthy all season and has been one of the best quarterbacks in the country, throwing for 2,882 yards, 24 touchdowns and six interceptions on 72.9% accuracy.

“The quarterback has a quick release, he’s a terrific quarterback. He’ll be one of the, most likely, the top players taken in the draft next year,” Whittingham said.

Then add in a cohort of talented pass catchers, led by two-way sensation Travis Hunter, who will be a Heisman finalist and could win the award this year, which would be Colorado’s first since 1994, when running back Rashaan Salaam won it.

Hunter is not only in the top 15 in the nation in receiving yards (856 yards, nine TDs) but also has 20 tackles, two interceptions, seven pass deflections and a forced fumble as a cornerback.

“Arguably have one of the best players in college football, maybe the best in the Hunter kid,” Whittingham said.

But it’s not just Hunter — Sanders has plenty of targets, including LaJohntay Wester, Will Sheppard and Jimmy Horn Jr., all of whom have over 400 receiving yards on the year. A lot of what Colorado does is quick passes to get its best players the ball, with over 60% of Sanders’ passes being behind the line of scrimmage or within 0-9 yards.

“Not just Hunter outside, they got three or four guys they can get the ball to,” Whittingham said. “So that’s a big part of what they do is getting the ball — speed and space is what we call it — getting the ball into the hands of the playmakers in space and letting them do their thing.”

Saturday’s game is really going to come down to how well the Utes can defend the pass — and if Utah can find offensive success itself. Colorado doesn’t put the ball in the hands of its running backs very often — the Buffaloes pass the ball 59% of the time, and that percentage increases when you take out Sanders’ runs, which make up 70 of Colorado’s 260 carries this season.

Colorado just isn’t a running team, with its 78.3 rushing yards per game ranking third-from-last in FBS.

The biggest reason for Colorado’s turnaround? An improved offensive line and a better defense. Last year’s front five was abysmal in protecting Sanders, giving up an astonishing 56 sacks. With a rebuilt offensive line via the transfer portal, Colorado is still near the bottom in sacks allowed (29) but has improved, especially of late.

“Coach Sanders is doing a great job and his staff. They have made a lot of adjustments and improvements over last year. Much better at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, so got our work cut out for us.”

—  Kyle Whittingham on the 2024 Buffaloes

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Defensively, Colorado is allowing 22.6 points per game, good for No. 52 in the country, which is a monumental achievement over the 34.8 points per game (No. 121) last year. New defensive coordinator Robert Livingston has hit all the right notes, and linebacker Brendan Gant, Hunter, cornerback D.J. McKinney and defensive linemen B.J. Green II and Arden Walker are leading the way.

Colorado’s defensive front has turned into one of the best in the country, dropping opposing quarterbacks 29 times this season — No. 6 nationally and the best in the Big 12.

“Coach Sanders is doing a great job and his staff. They have made a lot of adjustments and improvements over last year. Much better at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, so got our work cut out for us,” Whittingham said.

Unlike last year’s game, when Colorado’s postseason fate was already sealed, the Buffaloes still have everything to play for. For Utah, it’s another chance for the Utes to play spoiler and get closer to bowl eligibility. After losing even more players to season-ending injuries and coming off an emotional loss to BYU, is this the moment the bottom completely drops out for Utah and it finally gets blown out, or will the Utes continue to scrap, and perhaps pull off a Big 12-altering upset?

The Dallas Mavericks dropped an embarrassing game to the Utah Jazz on Thursday night, 115-113, making it their fourth straight loss, all in the clutch. They faced a deficit as large as 16 points but still took the lead late before falling apart once again in the final minute to lose.

It was a frustrating game that was all too familiar for Mavs fans. The same issues that plagued the team all season came back to bite them in this game. They need to figure out some issues quickly because the Western Conference is a bloodbath.

Here are three takeaways from Thursday night’s disappointment.

READ MORE: Mavericks Drop Embarrassing Game to Utah Jazz, 115-113

It’s getting a little repetitive saying what’s costing the Mavericks these games because it’s the exact same things: a lack of energy, bad fouls, getting killed by offensive rebounds, struggling in the clutch, and the three-point shooting being disappointing, specifically from Luka Doncic. It’s one thing to lose to good teams in the clutch, but this is the Utah Jazz, who hadn’t won a home game all year. Dallas allowed the Jazz to grab 18 offensive rebounds, while the Mavs shot just 30.9% from three and turned it over 17 times. Dallas is better than this.

All Dallas had to do to win this game was keep Dereck Lively II out of foul trouble. In his 17 minutes, he had a plus/minus of +11, while Daniel Gafford was -19. Lively picked up his fourth foul just 1:15 into the second half, but Jason Kidd left him out there for a few minutes, and he picked up his fifth a few minutes later. When he was re-inserted in the fourth quarter, he had an instant impact, and Dallas started to get back into the game. If he could’ve kept himself out of foul trouble, Dallas would have won this game, even with his massive mistake in the final seconds.

Jason Kidd was experimenting with lineups early in this game, including subbing in Dwight Powell at power forward. While he had three assists and two blocks, his refusal to shoot stalled the offense at times. If he’s going to play, he either has to shoot or he has to be playing center.

READ MORE: Dallas Mavericks Reveal New City Edition Jerseys

Stick with MavericksGameday for more FREE coverage of the Dallas Mavericks throughout the 2024-25 Season

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Where there are elections, there’s often big money — to the tune of millions of dollars. That’s true in Utah, which doesn’t come close to being a state with the most expensive races.

A lot of the spending in Utah elections for statewide seats comes before convention and before the primary, likely because those seats are often considered safe for Republicans. That money is spent on things like ads and gathering signatures to make it onto primary ballots.

Now that the election is wrapped up, here’s a look at how much money was brought in for candidates and where it was spent.

Utah Results

See Utah results update in real time

Governor

Gov. Spencer Cox (winner of election): The 2024 General Report showed Cox received more than $2.4 million in contributions (year to date). Throughout the year, the Cox campaign reported spending $3,782,382.19. At the beginning of the reporting period, the Cox campaign reported having more than $1.5 million as its balance.

The ending balance of the Cox campaign when it submitted its report was $158,370.28.

Leading up to the final weeks of the election, the Cox campaign spent less than half a million on things like the Governor’s Gala as well as various types of ads.

The report from the time heading into the state Republican convention shows the campaign spent close to $700,000. The campaign reported spending $147,000 on signature gathering. A fair amount of the campaign’s spending was on Lincoln Day dinners, booths at county conventions and advertising.

During the primary election reporting period, the Cox campaign reported it spent more than $1.4 million — a fair amount of it going toward advertising. The biggest single campaign donation the Cox camp reported during this time was to Derek Brown (now Utah attorney general-elect) at $50,000. The single biggest expenditure was $300,000 to Fluid Advertising.

The Cox campaign continued to spend into the general election, reporting around $1.16 million between June 14 and Sept. 25, and then more than $471,000 from Sept. 26 to Oct. 29.

Rep. Brian King: According to the report, King received over $632,000 in contributions (year to date). Throughout the year, the King campaign reported spending $651,962.94. The ending balance of the campaign at the conclusion of the general report’s period was $24,436.94.

The King campaign spent around $126,000 headed into convention. The campaign spent slightly less during the primary season (King was unopposed).

Most of the campaign’s spending happened during the general election — $405,237.56 (total from two reports). The single largest expense during the final reporting period was $45,000 to Elevate Strategies for advertising.

Senate

Rep. John Curtis (winner of election): A look at Open Secrets shows that Curtis raised around $5.4 million and spent about $4.67 million, leaving him with around $1.1 million. The last report is dated just a couple weeks before the election on Oct. 16.

In terms of outside spending, there was more than $7.7 million spent in support of Curtis and just under $100,000 spent opposing Curtis.

Caroline Gleich: During the campaign, Gleich raised around $1.1 million and spent about $1 million, leaving her with $102,819 at the end of the reporting period, according to Open Secrets.

$6,724 was spent in support of Gleich by an outside group: Protect Our Winters Action Fund.

More on the outside groups: There were three outside groups that spent more than $1 million, according to Open Secrets.

The Conservative Values for Utah PAC spent close to $5 million for Curtis. The group also spent $353,009 against Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, a Republican candidate for Senate who lost to Curtis.

Another outside group, Defend American Jobs, spent just under $2 million in support of Curtis. The group also spent $1.5 million against Staggs. Then, the Conservative Outsider PAC spent $1.8 million for Republican candidate Brent Orrin Hatch who was eliminated at convention and didn’t gather enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot.

Attorney general

Derek Brown (winner of election): The Brown campaign reported over $1.19 million in contributions year to date. The campaign also reported spending close to that same amount during the year and ending with a balance of $215,694.27. The balance at the start of the year was around $200,000.

During the primary reporting period (April 18 to June 13), the Brown campaign spent around $589,474 — much of that amount unsurprisingly going toward advertising.

Much of the Brown campaign spending was either during the primary or headed into the Republican convention. There are two reports filed after the primary election — one shows the campaign spent around $90,000 and the other shows the campaign spent around $152,000.

From January to April 17 (the convention part of the campaign), the Brown campaign reported spending right around $352,805 — $248,000 of that amount went toward signature gathering.

In the final month of the campaign, the Brown team reported spending more than $30,000 to Reagan Outdoor Advertising, which has billboards across the state.

Rudy Bautista: The Bautista campaign did not accept outside donations. The campaign spent $100 on a fine for late disclosure on the primary report — the campaign didn’t collect any donations during that time. The only other expenditure reported by the Bautista campaign is $60 for a website.

Third party candidates: Libertarian candidate Andrew McCullough raised around $500 during the campaign and unaffiliated candidate Austin Hepworth received just over $12,000.

United Utah Party candidate Michelle Quist had $146,000 year to date in contributions received — the Quist campaign ended up spending around $139,000 throughout the year. The largest single expenditure in the report headed into the generation election was $15,000 for advertising to Elevate Strategies.