While most of us were enjoying the sprinkle and wind that Sack Lake City had to offer this last weekend, the Utes went to sunny California to face off against the University of California.
The Utes went into California 4-0, while Cal was ready to face the Utes with a 2-2 record, but regardless of the record, Cal was predicted to win this game.
Let’s jump straight into it.
The Bears managed to hold off the Utes in the first quarter.
Cal racked up a score of 14 points in the first quarter, but sadly Utah wasn’t able to put up any numbers until the second quarter.
With Utah falling behind, The Utes managed to hold off Cal for the second quarter, and they added 10 points of their own, putting the game at 14-10 at halftime.
With Utah determined to start the game in the second half, with the determination to have a comeback, the Utes were able to put another 7 points on the board with only 4 minutes left to play.
Not long after, the Bears were able to put up 7 points themselves, and they started taking the lead into the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter is the real show, because in these 15 minutes–which in reality is like 45 minutes because of all the time outs and calls that happen–the team that puts in the most work, and the most effort, will prove to be victorious.
It came down to the last 4 minutes of the game, Utah had scored a touchdown just 3 minutes after Cal, but the Utes weren’t able to get the extra points up, putting Utah behind 3 points.
We had only 2 time outs left, and if you don’t know much about football, most teams will save those timeouts until the last few minutes, because once it hits the single digits in time left, the clock just runs, no stopping in between plays, and that can cause a lot of time lost for the team that is trying to make into the end zone.
Utah had 3 chances to make it into the end zone, and just when the Utes needed to continue the play, a ref heard Coach Whittingham call a time out. The problem? Coach Whittingham didn’t call the time out, Whittingham tried to fight the call, unfortunately the officials still used the timeout that Whittingham needed that for the last few seconds in the game.
With only one time out left, the Utes used it at the most important time, and all they had to do with the ball was run it into the end zone. Just LESS THAN A YARD into the end zone, and the Utes still weren’t able to get the extra points to win the game.
The Utes have managed to be undefeated until Saturday, they are now 4-1 and are ranked 24 out of 25 in the AP poll, as well as being tied for second with Arizona State in the South Conference with a 1-1 record in the PAC-12 Conference.
Utah is back at home this week with the Homecoming game against Arizona who is in last place in our division, with that in mind, the Utes plan on not showing any mercy on Arizona this weekend. This week is Utah’s homecoming week, so losing at home is not an option for Utah, especially if we plan to go to the PAC-12 championship this year.