What Utah's Kyle Whittingham said following win vs. Arizona State

Utes head coach analyzed his team's 42-10 win over the Sun Devils in his postgame press conference

Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham reacts to a play against the Arizona State Sun Devils during the first quarter at Rice-Eccles Stadium. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Kyle Whittingham doesn't want to hear any more about Utah's struggles against Big 12 opponents.

Prior to his weekly press conference on Monday, Whittingham didn't realize the Utes were riding a five-game home losing streak to conference opponents into Saturday's contest against Arizona State — a streak that seemed unfathomable for a program that once felt unbeatable inside Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Safe to say, the Utes won't be thinking about that trend any longer after their beatdown of the Sun Devils.

Led by a dominant rushing attack that was spearheaded by its dual-threat quarterback, Utah ran all over Arizona State en route to a 42-10 victory Saturday night, snapping its dreadful streak while handing the Sun Devils their first loss in conference play in almost a full calendar year.

"We're done with that," Whittingham said of the Utes' streak of losses to Big 12 foes after the game.

Devon Dampier accounted for 120 of his team's 276 rushing yards, while the Utes' defense shut down the Sam Leavitt-less Sun Devils and sacked backup quarterback Jeff Sims five times to pull out Utah's fourth win by 30 or more points this season.

Here's more of what Whittingham had to say after the wire-to-wire victory.

On Devon Dampier's night and his health

"Really proud of our guys, Devon Dampier especially. We didn't throw the ball a ton tonight, but he was very efficient when we did throw it. And he's back to health. He was hobbled a little bit the last few weeks, but he's back to 100% and that was more of what you saw tonight, is more of what he's capable of."

"You saw some of the moves he made tonight. He just wasn't capable of making those moves the last few weeks. But now with the bye week — the bye week really helped him out — we're elated that he's back to 100%."

On Utah's secondary and limiting Jordyn Tyson's impact

"[I] thought the secondary played real well. We were in great position on those balls up the field all night long. Very proud of the way Smith Snowden played and Blake Cotton and Scooby [Davis]. I mean, those guys really ... I think it was their best game of the year."

"[Slowing down Tyson] was obviously a focal point, and Smith Snowden did an outstanding job on him. He shadowed him a lot of the night; not completely, but a lot of the time. And to hold talent like that to just 40 yards is a credit, again, to the secondary and the way they played tonight. He's a heck of a player."

On how his team handled the weather delay

"I thought they handled it real well. We took a little different approach; we waited until about 25 minutes before kickoff to go out, and then just stayed out. Our usual routine is to go out at about 65 minutes before and then do some things and come back in, and go back out. But I thought we had a good plan to not come back in once we went out and go out later, so they were not as exposed to the weather for as long. And I thought that worked out, so, yeah, no problem there."

On how his team had responded from the Texas Tech loss

"Well, they've been a determined bunch ever since that loss. Not that they were not practicing well prior to that, but that was a very disappointing game to them. You can you tell they were hurt and ticked off, and I think they've responded as well as we possibly could have hoped for."

On whether the game plan changed once Sam Leavitt was ruled out

"No, it was really too late to make any wholesale changes. Nor would we have had [Leavitt been ruled out] earlier in the week. Sam is a really good runner; that's how he's made the majority of his big plays this year is with his legs. And the kid we saw tonight, [Jeff] Sims, he's a runner as well. He's a good runner, and so even if we would have known a couple days before, we wouldn't really have tweaked much at all."