Defense Won The Day For Utah Against Weber State

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – It’s not that the offense was bad in the Utah football team’s 41-10 victory over Weber State. They did score 31 more points than the Wildcat offense and put up more than 500 yards. But postgame, it was the defense that received the majority of praise from the coaching staff.

“They were lights-out from start to finish,” head coach Kyle Whittingham told Mike Sorensen of the Deseret News. “It was a smothering defense and we controlled the game.”

It was a total team effort for the Ute defense. After taking an early 10-0 lead due to a pair of Utah turnovers, the Wildcats’ offense was completely stymied by the Utes. Weber State was held to just 13 yards through the air and 46 on the ground. They also converted just 3 first downs, compared to 25 by Utah.

Interestingly, it was the Wildcats who won the turnover battle by forcing Utah to drop the ball four times. While they couldn’t generate much in terms of yardage gain, the Wildcats didn’t commit a single turnover. As pleased as he was with the defense, Whittingham knows his team will have to win the turnover battle to win ball games from here on out.

“The defense did not create any takeaways,” he said. “We have been the best team in the nation the last three or four years at taking the ball away. Tonight you would not have known that. You’re not going to win many games being minus-four in turnover margin. In fact, you’ll win zero Pac-12 games doing that.”