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No. 7 Utah dismantles UCLA 49-3 in big Pac-12 South showdown

Utes leave no doubt by scoring 49 consecutive points in the route
Ryan Kostecka|
No. 7 Utah dismantles UCLA 49-3 in big Pac-12 South showdown
No. 7 Utah dismantles UCLA 49-3 in big Pac-12 South showdown

Utah's issues with the month of November seem to be coming to an end.

Coming into Saturday night's showdown with UCLA, No. 7 Utah was well aware of its November struggles. Despite defeating Washington two weeks ago to kick off the month, the Utes had a big game against the Bruins tonight, with the loser all but being eliminated from the Pac-12 south division title race.

Well, Utah doesn't have to worry about that after their showing under the lights at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Behind the play of quarterback Tyler Huntley, running back Zack Moss and a physical defense, Utah dominated UCLA 49-3 for the win. 

“Outstanding performance by our guys tonight. ... Proud of them," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said. "That’s a good football team too in that other locker room, [but] our offense and defense really both played well.”

Huntley was efficient all night, finishing 14-of-18 for 335 yards and three total touchdowns, including touchdowns throws of 69 and 83 yards. Moss showed off his complete skillset, rushing for 127 yards and two scores while adding 73 yards receiving. 

“Tyler Huntley was outstanding. ... Incredible completion percentage and yards per attempt was way up there," Whittingham said. "Zack Moss was outstanding."

Tight end Brant Kuithe had himself a career-night, finishing with five catches for 132 yards, including a 69-yard score. Kuithe was a mismatch nightmare all night ling, consistently finding the holes in the Bruins defense before using his athleticism to rack up yards after the catch.

"He’s just a tremendous athlete and it’s not anything we scripted differently other than he just happened to shake free more often than he had in the past," Whittingham said of Kuithe. "I don’t know if teams know really how to account for him because he can’t be covered by a linebacker and even safeties struggle with him. He has been playing really great football for us all year long, but he’s a tremendous weapon."

The Bruins looked as if they were going to a game of it, driving straight down the field on the opening possession of the game. 

With Joshua Kelley running strong between the tackles and quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson showcasing his dual-threat capabilities, UCLA converted three third downs to set up first-and-goal from the nine.

 After a completion to Kyle Phillips put the ball at the 3, Utah's defense suddenly woke up and brought the pressure. Sacks by Julian Blackmon and Bradlee Anae resulted in a J.J. Molson 43-yard field goal, giving the Bruins the early lead.

From there, it was all Utah on both sides of the ball.

The Utes responded with a touchdown on a Huntley 3-yard rush before Moss' 4-yard touchdown rush gave Utah a 14-3 lead midway through the second quarter.

Utah's defense got on the board when Blackmon sacked Thompson-Robinson and forced a fumble, where defensive lineman Mika Tafua picked up fumble and rumbled 68 yards for the score with 2:19 to play in the half.

After the defense forced a punt, it was the Moss show when the Utes took over with 1:12 left in the half and the ball at their own 15. Moss did the work himself, rushing for seven yards on the first play, catching a 50 yard pass on the third play and rushing for a 38-yard touchdown on the fourth play of the drive to blow the game open and give the Utah a 28-3 lead at the break.

“We just went out there and tried to win. .... We don’t care what the score is," Moss said. "We just want to come out and execute plays and put in our best effort. It’s not about the team we’re going against, it’s about us.”

It took the Utes three plays into the second half before they scored again, when Kuithe caught a Huntley pass, broke a tackle and ran 68 yards for the score. Huntley then found Samson Nacua for an 83-yard score early in the fourth quarter before Devonta'e Henry-Cole found the endzone from 27 yards away the following possession to complete the scoring.

“With a good team like this, with a good team like Utah — and first off, hats off to them — you can’t afford to have mishits and mental errors, and having 10 guys doing their job and one guy not," said UCLA linebacker Lokeni Toailoa. "Against a good team like this, at the end of the day, you just have to do your job.”

Defensively, the Utes held the Pac-12's highest scoring offense to just 269 total yards on 3.7 yards per play, while forcing five turnovers. UCLA entered the game as the Pac-12's best rushing offense, but Utah's physicality held the Bruins in check and holding the Bruins to 50 yards total on 1.7 yards per rush.

"We knew their defensive line was very good and we knew going into this game it was going to be important to protect the quarterback and we didn’t do a good enough job of that," said Chip Kelly, UCLA's head coach. "Against a good team like this, the No. 7 ranked team in the country, to lose the turnover battle, that’s kind of what the game boiled down to. You can’t give a team that good that many opportunities.”

Utah travels to the desert next week when it faces Arizona (4-6, 2-5 Pac-12) on Saturday, Nov. 23. Kickoff is TBD.

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Ryan Kostecka
RYAN KOSTECKA

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