UTAH UTES
Utah Offense Positive After Tough Loss
Sep 6, 2022, 11:05 AM
(Photo courtesy of Utah Athletics)
(Photo courtesy of Utah Athletics)
SALT LAKE CITY- There is nothing worse than doing enough to win a hard-fought game and coming up just short of victory, but that is what happened to Utah Saturday at The Swamp. No, it was not a perfectly played game. There are certainly things the Utes need to work on, but they played tough, as did their opponent in Florida to where you knew whoever came up short was going to feel a bit crushed about it.
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Part of being a good to great team however, (and Utah still has that potential despite the three-point loss) is being able to put disappointment to the side and find the positives. That appears to be what Utah’s offense did Monday upon their return to practice in preparation for Southern Utah this coming Saturday.
Utah Offense Moving Forward
It can be really easy to get down when you know you can do better. Utah’s quarterback Cam Rising was certainly feeling it shortly after an interception he threw in the end zone that sealed the Utes’ fate in Gainesville and rightfully so. However, Rising is determined to not let that one play define him or the team and is back to the drawing board to make sure necessary improvements are made.
“There are a lot of things we’ve got to clean up,” Rising said. “It’s not my job to grade those and coach Lud and I have talked about all of the plays and went through it. There is a lot of stuff I need to clean up.”
As for what those things are, Rising says he wants to be better about passing the ball around to all of their offensive weapons and getting guys more involved.
“Just getting the ball to the guys,” Rising said. “Catchable balls to make sure they can make a play and advance the ball.”
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Utah tight end Brant Kuithe says the team has already put the game behind them, partially due to their ordeal trying to get back to Salt Lake putting things in perspective. Kuithe did note they were obviously upset immediately after the game, but they feel good about who they are as a team and how they can grow during the season.
“Obviously, you’re going to be upset after the game,” Kuithe said. “After all of the things that were happening after the game- it’s just not the end of the world. You have to go into the next- we have a game this week. The only thing you can do is prepare for that and try to go 1-0.”
Wide reciever Devaughn Vele felt like there were more positives to take away from the game than negatives. Utah will of course want to address the negatives and work to improve them, but generally speaking Vele felt like the team is in a good spot to get better from.
“My biggest takeaway- physicality we were there, we didn’t let the noise get to us,” Vele said. “There were a ton of fans, but we knew the game plan coming in. We had to execute and we did execute on some plays and we left some plays out on the field. I think the biggest takeaway is finishing in the red zone because we didn’t efficiently score in the red zone like we could have done. The score would have been a lot different. We had six trips to the end zone and only three of them we got scores out of so it’s something we’ve got to work on.”
