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SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah finally got their signature win in the Pac-12 last Saturday against the No. 5 Stanford Cardinal. The victory was great for the program, but it will mean nothing unless the Utes take care of business on the road.
Utah will travel to Arizona to take on the Wildcats in a divisional game. The Utes need a victory to get closer to bowl eligibility and for a chance to move up the South Division.
Utah will get the night game, so they've got all day to prepare. Here are five keys for the Utes to come away victorious:
This is a business trip for Utah on basically the first road trip of the season. The conference is now aware of Utah after the win against Stanford and no team will be overlooking the Utes now. This includes Arizona, who won at Rice-Eccles Stadium a year ago. For many on the Utes team this will be their first road trip requiring a plane. It is time for Trevor Reilly and the leaders of this team to learn how to make a business trip.
Wildcats running back Kadeem Carey is arguably the best in the country and by far the best at that position the Utes have seen all season. Utah has done well stopping the run, but the task gets tougher against Carey. He has great vision, speed and is a tremendous competitor. He led the nation in rushing last year as a freshman.
The game last week against Stanford was great, but it was last week — get over it. It is time to win a meaningful win on the road. The Utes beat Arizona in 2011 and Stoops got fired. Utah beat Paul Wulff in 2011 — then he got fired. Again, the Utes beat Jon Embree in 2012 and he was canned. Those were lame duck coaches. Hip hip hooray, now is time to beat someone on the road.
The Utes struggled taking the ball away in their first five games, but did a better job in the game against Stanford — and in the end, Utah won the game. There is absolutely a correlation between taking the ball away and winning.
The Utes have lost their first two conference games by a combined 10 points. The Utes did a poor job of containing Ty Montgomery last week and got away with it. The Utes need to tighten up the coverage and can't miss tackles. Utah is not good enough to overcome a couple of touchdowns given up on special teams
