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Wild interception-fumble-safety sequence highlights Utah’s loss and end of Pac-12 title reign

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Wild interception-fumble-safety sequence highlights Utah’s loss and end of Pac-12 title reign


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SEATTLE — By the time there were 46 seconds left in the third quarter Saturday at Husky Stadium, a great deal had already transpired between the University of Utah and the University of Washington.

Bryson Barnes completed 13-of-17 passes for 238 yards and two touchdowns, and that was just the first half as the Utes took a 28-24 lead to the locker room. Things then shifted, the Huskies’ high-octane offense finding its footing behind Heisman Trophy candidate Michael Penix Jr. and 1,000-yard receiver Rome Odunze.

A Penix Jr.-to-Odunze 33-yard touchdown pass with 4:16 left in the third quarter gave Washington a 33-28 lead. On the ensuing drive, Utah moved to the Washington 14-yard line, but a holding penalty on Miki Suguturaga backed the Utes up 10 yards.

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After nearly three quarters of craziness, only then did things get truly crazy.

On that first-and-20 play from the 24-yard line, Barnes took a shotgun snap, and as a corner blitz came. He sidearmed a pass over the middle, intended for tight end Dallen Bentley. The pass was a little behind Bentley, who tipped it before it was intercepted by Washington linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala.

In evading a charging Barnes around the Utah 20-yard line, Tuputala appeared to have a game-changing and Utah season-crushing 76-yard return for a touchdown.

It appeared.

“Just a miscommunication on a play,” a somber Barnes said postgame.

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Instead, Tuputala, believing he had scored, dropped the ball at the 1-yard line. With Washington celebrating the apparent touchdown, Utah right guard Michael Mokofisi had the presence of mind to recover the ball.

Instead of the Huskies (10-0, 7-0 Pac-12) taking a 39-28 lead with the extra point pending, Utah (7-3, 4-3 Pac-12) got a reprieve in the form of the ball back at the 1-yard line.

“A tremendous heads-up play by that kid,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said. “He’s 330 pounds, ran the distance, never gave up on the play, and had the wherewithal to understand he had dropped it early. I can’t say enough about his effort and his awareness.”

Utah offensive lineman Michael Mokofisi (52) recovers a fumble by Washington linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala (11) after Tuputala dropped the football while celebrating his interception before reaching the end zone, during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, in Seattle. Washington won 35-28.
Utah offensive lineman Michael Mokofisi (52) recovers a fumble by Washington linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala (11) after Tuputala dropped the football while celebrating his interception before reaching the end zone, during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, in Seattle. Washington won 35-28. (Photo: Lindsey Wasson, Associated Press)

If that sequence wasn’t crazy enough, Utah’s reprieve didn’t last very long.

With the Utes taking over on their own 1, the call was a running play to Ja’Quinden Jackson, but the play never had a chance.

On the snap, Washington defensive end Tuli Letuligasenoa got to Jackson first by blowing through the left side of Utah’s offensive line. Linebacker Carson Bruener then dropped Jackson 4 yards deep in the end zone for a safety and a 35-28 lead with 30 seconds left in the third quarter.

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“It’s still better than giving up a touchdown, but it took some of the wind out of our sails when that happened,” Whittingham said. “That’s something you see in football on a rare occasion (dropping the ball at the goal line). It’s not unheard of, and it happened today.”

To Whittingham’s point of the wind coming out of Utah’s sails on the safety, the Utes’ two fourth-quarter drives netted a total of 3 yards. One of those drives was the last of the game, after Connor O’Toole blocked a 32-yard Grady Gross field goal with 1:46 left to give Barnes one more chance.

The following drive consisted of a pair of incomplete passes, one to Mikey Matthews and the other to Jackson, before a completion on third down to Jackson went for no gain.

On fourth-and-10 from his own 18, Barnes was flushed from the pocket before desperately throwing into traffic over the middle. Strong safety Dominique Hampton intercepted that pass, Penix Jr. took two knees, and Washington will go into a critical late-season contest at Oregon State with everything still to play for, including a spot in the College Football Playoff.

The loss effectively ends Utah’s two-season reign as Pac-12 champion thanks to a third conference loss.

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“We were rolling on offense in the first half, and we just weren’t able to find something that second half,” said Barnes, who finished 17-of-30 for 267 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. “Losing is never fun, but I love this group of guys, love my teammates, and we’re going to get through it.”

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Josh Newman is a veteran journalist of 19 years, most recently for The Salt Lake Tribune, where he covered the University of Utah from Dec. 2019 until May 2023. Before that, he covered Rutgers University for Gannett New Jersey.

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Utah Hockey Club Owner Ryan Smith Builds Buzz With Free Ticket Giveaway

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Utah Hockey Club Owner Ryan Smith Builds Buzz With Free Ticket Giveaway


When you’re the Utah Hockey Club, giving away 2,000 tickets to a regular-season game is a cause for celebration, not alarm.

After all, not every pro sports team team has an unused inventory of ‘single goal view seats’ that it can tap as a tool to help entice new fans.

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It started with a simple tweet from Utah Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith ahead of the club’s home game against the Vancouver Canucks last Wednesday.

In a followup, Smith said that he’d planned to give away the eight seats in his owner’s suite. But when he got more than 700 responses, he decided to open the invitation wider.

In the end, he put 2,000 extra people into Delta Center on top of the usual sold-out crowd of 11,131. And the fans got a good show as Utah staged a third-period rally from a 2-0 deficit before Mikhail Sergachev buried the game-winner on a 2-on-1 with 12 seconds left in overtime.

Acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning during the 2024 NHL draft weekend, Sergachev has been a massive difference-maker for the Utah team in its first season in its new home. Helping to fill holes after fellow veteran blueliners John Marino and Sean Durzi went down early with long-term injuries, 26-year-old Sergachev is averaging 25:45 a game, third-most in the entire NHL.

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With eight goals and 26 points in 33 games to date, the two-time Stanley Cup winner is also on pace to match his previous career high of 64 points in a season, set in 2022-23.

Another standout has been goaltender Karel Vejmelka. The 28-year-old now sits second in the NHL with 16.5 goals saved above expected according to MoneyPuck, and has amassed a career-best save percentage of .918.

After their vagabond years in Arizona, including their last two seasons as secondary tenants at 4,600-seat Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the re-established Utah team would come out of the gate as road warriors. Unbeaten in regulation in their last eight games, with a record of 6-0-2, they’re up to 11-6-2 on the road this season.

Utah’s home win over Vancouver last Wednesday boosted the squad to 5-5-3 on home ice. The club followed up on Sunday with a 5-4 shootout loss to the Anaheim Ducks, which has the team just outside of the Western Conference wild-card picture with one more game to go before the NHL’s three-day holiday break — hosting the Dallas Stars as part of a 13-game slate on Monday.

On Dec. 2, the Stars earned a 2-1 win at the Delta Center — Utah’s only regulation loss since Nov. 24. The Western Conference standings are tight, but the new club is trending positively toward making the playoffs in its inaugural season. The Coyotes’ only post-season appearance in the franchise’s last 12 years came as part of the expanded 24-team field in the 2020 pandemic bubble, when they eliminated the Nashville Predators in the best-of-three qualifying round before falling to the Colorado Avalanche.

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Of the ice, Smith and his wife and co-owner, Ashley, have already helped make winners out of their 31 fellow NHL owners. Smith Entertainment Group’s $1.2 billion purchase of Arizona’s hockey assets last April fueled a 140 percent increase in the valuation of the franchise — a key metric in the league’s 44 percent increase in average valuations in 2024 per Forbes estimates, which dramatically outpaces the growth of the other North American sports over the last year.

The rosy economic picture for the Utah Hockey Club and the league as a whole bodes well for the next round of collective bargaining. While the current deal is not set to expire until the end of the 2025-26 season, commissioner Gary Bettman indicated at the league’s board of governors’ meetings in Florida earlier this month that he and NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh plan to start formal discussions in February, with an eye toward potentially completing an agreement before the end of this hockey year.



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Washington EDGE Lance Holtzclaw transfers to Utah

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Washington EDGE Lance Holtzclaw transfers to Utah


Lance Holtzclaw has found a new home. The former Washington edge rusher entered the transfer portal after three years on Montlake and has signed with one of the Huskies’ former Pac-12 opponents, the Utah Utes.

Now in the Big 12, coach Kyle Whittingham’s team should be a good fit for the 6-foot-3, 225-pound pass rush specialist, which finished third in the conference in total defense, allowing 329.7 yards per game in its first year in the conference.

The Utes also finished fifth in the conference with 24 sacks, a statistic that Holtzclaw may be able to assist with if he can see the field more often.

In three years with the Huskies, the former three-star recruit who is originally from Dorchester, Massachusetts, played in 26 games and tallied 13 tackles, 2 sacks, and a fumble recovery.

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Holtzclaw’s most notable moment in a Husky uniform came in Washington’s 26-21 win over the USC Trojans in November. He came in on fourth down and pressured quarterback Miller Moss, forcing an errant throw in the game’s final seconds. He also completes an effective defensive line trade between the two schools, after the Huskies added a commitment from former Utah defensive tackle Simote Pepa last week.



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Dybantsa, Mandaquit lead Utah Prep to ‘Iolani Classic title | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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Dybantsa, Mandaquit lead Utah Prep to ‘Iolani Classic title | Honolulu Star-Advertiser




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