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LOS ANGELES — The University of Utah will begin conference play this weekend against the University of Southern California on the road. The Trojans are coached by Lane Kiffin, who is in his second year at the Los Angeles-based school.
Although the Utes and Trojans have met nine times previously, this marks the first meeting between the two schools since the 2001 Las Vegas Bowl, which was won by Utah 10-6. Kiffin spoke with the media this week about his team and his initial thoughts on the Utes. He also addressed the comments he made after last week's game in which he said his offense had "two good players" and they need to "figure out the rest."
Week 2 Game Notes- Utah (1-0, 0-0 Pac-12) vs. USC (1-0, 0-0 Pac-12)
- Date: Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011
- Time: 4:30 p.m. PT (5:30 MT)
- Site: L.A. Coliseum (93,607/Grass) Los Angeles, Calif.
- TV: VERSUS
- Radio: ESPN700
- Series Record: USC leads 6-3
- Last Meeting: 2001 Las Vegas Bowl (Utah 10, USC 6)
- Kickoff Weather: Partly cloudy, Temps: near 80
On his negative postgame comments and whether or not he regrets them: “Yeah, I do. The question was posed about what did you learn today, and really, what I learned was there were two guys who had great games. And so I didn’t phrase it (well), and I told our offense that this morning, too. I didn’t mean it that way. Obviously, we had some guys that did play well, but coming out of that game the feeling was, from watching that game, there were two guys that played great on offense, and so I didn’t phrase it the right way.”
On whether the team will respond to him after a less than stellar performance last week:
“I hope so. I think that our players are around me every day so they understand. It’s been talked about a lot, about the standards that we have and our expectations of play around here. So when a game happens like that, a game that basically is two different halves... The first half, we score three touchdowns, they don’t score any. Three of our four possessions are touchdowns, our defense is playing good, special teams is playing good, very few penalties, 90 percent completion, that’s how we expect to play. So the second half was very disappointing, so I don’t think I surprised our players at all. I think they have the same expectations. That’s why they came here. They came here to do great things.”
On what was learned after watching film:
“(Our) offensive line and consistency with the tight ends — I thought the receivers played really well, the quarterback played great. You can’t diminish how well the quarterback played. I know our offense has taken some hits for lack of production in the second half, but that wasn’t (his) fault. The guy was as good as you could play almost, and I think at one point there he was 20-22. You know, that doesn’t happen on air. So he played great, the running backs were fine. It’s the offensive line and tight ends that need to be more consistent in order to have a really good game. And it’s not that hard. We did it in the first half. You’ll win every game you play if you don’t turn the ball over, you don’t get sacked and you score touchdowns on 75 percent of your drives.”
On injury news:
“I think we’re pretty good. Out of the game, nothing really happened in the game, which is very fortunate. Any time you can be 1-0 and not have any big injuries, it's a good thing. So we can go back and work on little things. We’ve added Marc Tyler back to our roster, and so that gives us some depth. Our goal is to make our roster extremely competitive, not just down here at the ones but at service team. And so adding a guy like Buck Allen to it, all those little guys that you can add as they come back in or that you sign, they qualify, they make your team better because that’s who you’re going against. And that hurt us a lot last year. Our service teams, there were a lot of kids that we just found going to school here that weren’t even football players, so hopefully this is going to help us.”
On his initial impressions of Utah:
“Yeah this is a very good team; a team that, over the last 10 years, has been as good as anybody in the country. ... They’ve played many bowl games and won. They’re not going to be intimidated by coming in to ‘SC or the Coliseum at all, so we’re going to have our hands full. Since we’ve been back this time, I would say this is the best front four we’ve seen and had to face. The front seven in general is really, really good and dominant at times.”
On Utah Linebacker Brian Belchen:
“(He’s) very athletic, all over the place, kind of a team leader-type guy. Played really well last year so you can see how he’s stepping up.”
Landon Walters is a history and political science major currently studying at Salt Lake Community College and is an avid sports fan. He can be reached at mavericksoccer_22@hotmail.com
