SALT LAKE CITY — It’s no secret that Utah’s offense has struggled to find its rhythm. If not for running back Devontae Booker, Utah would almost exclusively rely upon its defense and special teams for all of its points.

While it’s easy for onlookers to criticize Utah’s anemic offense — and there are myriad so-called solutions circling the program — Utah receiver Kaelin Clay said the offense is a little more complex and involves all aspects of the game working together for it to come together. But, Clay noted, the responsibility starts with the receiving group.

“It’s a lot of things; it’s not just one,” Clay said. “We’ve got to get separation, we’ve got to run the right routes, timing has to be right. It’s something we just have to work on. We work on it a lot in practice.

“You have to be a balanced offense,” Clay added. “You can’t just always depend on Devontae to get it done. We can’t always depend on Andy (Phillips) to get it done. As a receiving group we’ve just got to step up, that’s it; we’ve got to step up, we have to make those plays. We’ve made them before, we just have to step up and there’s no excuse for that.”

Although the passing game has been relatively absent since Utah started conference play, receiver Kenneth Scott said the plays are there to be made.

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From top to bottom, the Pac-12 has talented quarterbacks in place to put points on the board and run their respective offenses. In fact, a defensive focus is a rarity for nearly every team in the conference.

“When I’m running downfield on TV you don’t see it; you only see the first 5 yards,” Scott said. “I could show you numerous plays downfield where I was open, but you wouldn’t see it if you’re watching on TV because it only shows the first 5 yards.”

“There were times that we were open downfield, but when you have five, six, seven in your face all the time, as Arizona State brought pressure, it’s kinda hard to get the ball downfield,” Clay said. “We did have opportunities where we were open, but we just didn’t get the opportunity to get the ball and make the play.”

But Scott said the rhetoric that receivers aren’t making plays and getting open is “frustrating.”

“That’s the most frustrating part about the media nowadays because these Jon Gruden analysts, supposedly, they want to act like they know it. And it’s like you’re only seeing the first development of it,” Scott said. “Of course you’re only going to see the underneath routes because that’s what the TV’s showing. You don’t see the downfield routes. That’s the only frustrating part about it.”

Since opening up conference play, Utah’s offense is averaging 115.6 passing yards and only three touchdowns. The passing game is significantly down and is averaging only 4.36 yards per attempt. In comparison, Oregon, the best in the Pac-12 in average yards per passing attempt, is averaging 10.2 yards.

Following Utah’s loss to Arizona State, many have criticized the play-calling, saying the offensive game plan was conservative and simply inefficient. Scott said part of the lack of production in the passing game has been the slowed-down tempo of the game recently, not the scheme.

“What helped us have so much success in the beginning was we were going (up-) tempo; we were going really fast and catching the defense out of place,” Scott said. “Now that we’ve slowed it down a little bit, defenses are able to schematically put themselves in the right position to stop us, being that we don’t have many complex combos in our routes.”

But Scott said the team is looking to change the offensive game plan going into the game against No. 4 Oregon on Saturday.

“This week we’re switching it up a little bit, putting more structures in our routes,” he said. “As you could see last game there weren’t many deep throws or things like that, but it’s going to switch this week. Our approach this week is to keep their offense off the field. You’re going to see a lot more deep throws, a lot of different type of routes than what we did previously."

“I believe we have the right scheme,” Clay said. “I believe our play-calling is right; we just have to be on point with it.”

Following Utah’s loss Saturday, head coach Kyle Whittingham said he’d like to see more production from the quarterback position. Whittingham has since opened up the position for quarterbacks Travis Wilson and Kendal Thompson to earn the starting job Saturday.

Scott said the loss of production of offense isn’t necessarily a result of changing quarterbacks, but that a stable quarterback all season would help add consistency and a much-needed rhythm.

“We’ve just got to roll with the punches,” Scott said. “We’d love to have one quarterback that could just go with the season. But due to certain circumstances it’s altered.”

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