Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah football had just retired the No. 22 in honor of former teammates Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe. And on the first play to start the second quarter, Tavion Thomas rushed for an 8-yard score.
Not a bad way to celebrate the first-ever number retired in program history.
Thomas' touchdown, though, was just one of several scores by the running back as he completed a hat trick by halftime for the Utes in an important South division matchup against the visiting UCLA Bruins, who were without starting quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson due to injury.
Thomas rumbled to 160 yards and four touchdowns en route to a 44-24 win over the Bruins. His third score of the night came on a 10-yard rush that was helped by offensive lineman Sataoa Laumea pancaking a UCLA (5-4, 3-3) defender to open up a clean hole for Thomas to run through to the end zone, and the Utes never looked back.
"I was like, 'Oh, I guess I'll go right there then.' That was crazy watching; I love that," Thomas said of the block Laumea made to set up the touchdown. "That's tough and nasty right there."
"It was a car accident out there," Utah quarterback Cam Rising added. "I had to turn back and I was like 'Wow.' I heard an oof in the crowd and everything."
Thomas' third score of the night also capped a run of four-straight touchdown drives before being held to a turnover on downs late in the second half. Utah (5-3, 4-1 Pac-12) was moving the ball well but had two incompletions on third and fourth down to halt a fifth straight score before the halftime break.
His fourth touchdown of the night was his longest, a 24-yard rush up the middle, in the fourth quarter to seal the victory for the Utes. The touchdown drive followed a Utah safety by Hauati Pututau, who went untouched as he quickly sacked backup quarterback Ethan Garbers in the end zone.
In Thompson-Robinson's absence for UCLA, the Bruins turned to Garbers, who had attempted only seven passes in his career leading up to the start Saturday night. The redshirt freshman threw for 265 yards, two touchdowns and an interception on 27-of-44 passing against Utah in a solid showing.
But Utah's defense, which got a boost in the second half when Devin Lloyd returned to the game, did enough to limit UCLA to 146 yards rushing. Lloyd was held out of the first half due to a targeting call in the second half of Utah's loss to Oregon State. In his return, Lloyd recorded only three tackles and sack, but Utah's defense made up for the difference.
The effort was not perfect, according to Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, but the defense held a UCLA team that averaged 206.1 yards rushing to just 146 yards.
"We worked hard on it all week; we work hard on every week, but it was a particular point of emphasis this past week, and we needed to have more physicality down there — I think you saw that tonight," Whittingham said of his team's improved run defense. "That was our objective and that was our philosophy going in is pound it, and we were able to do that."
But UCLA managed to go 7-of-9 on fourth-down conversions to extend plays and keep Utah's defense on the field. In the end, it wasn't a big problem for the Utes against the Bruins, but Whittingham said it's a concern for his defense.
"Defense played OK, not great," Whittingham said. "We've still got things that we got to get better at on defense. ... We got them to third down and we won that but lost too many fourth downs."
Utah finished the night with 469 total yards, including 290 rushing yards on 44 carries and 179 passing from Rising, who also had a 12-yard rushing touchdown to start the fourth quarter to give the Utes an 18-point lead.
But the biggest surprise of the night was Rising's two punts — yes, punts — that were placed inside the 10-yard line, including a 43-yard punt that was downed at the 6-yard line late in the game to set up Utah's safety against Garbers. Though it was a surprise to everyone watching, Rising said he punted the ball in high school and was able to give Utah a different look on fourth down situations.
"I actually used to do that all the time in high school," Rising said. "I think I got recognized in CIF Southern section for it. It was nice to make it come to fruition once we ran it out there; it was fun."
Whittingham said the decision to use Rising as a punter was largely due to his lack of confidence in the special teams unit that had two blocked punts last week against Oregon State.
"You get two punts blocked and you don't have a lot of confidence," he said.
Whether punting the ball or being in his natural habitat as quarterback, Rising's play on the field has given Whittingham confidence in the offense. For that reason, Utah elected to start on offense after winning the coin toss at the beginning of the game — a rare opportunity in a Whittingham-led team that relies on its defense to win games.
"Yeah, our offense, I'm starting to gain more and more confidence in the offensive guys and we're starting to control the line of scrimmage better."
It was also a way to help Utah limit the impact of Lloyd being off the field in the first half.
"Almost exclusively we defer, but we took the ball because we knew Devin — that might give us one more series with Devin that we wouldn't have had," Whittingham said.
With the win, Utah takes sole possession of first place in the South division after Arizona State fell to Washington State earlier in the day. Utah now has a two-game buffer on the Sun Devils in the South race and a three-game buffer against the Bruins.
"I think we're not focused on that," Rising said. "We're focused on finishing the rest of the season off strong. We're making sure that we're in the right position that we want to be in and not not really focusing on anybody else, not worrying about what anybody else — just handling in house.
"With Arizona State getting beat, it puts us in pretty good position," Whittingham added. "There's still a ton of football left — we all understand that — but for the moment and for right now, we're in a pretty good spot. We've just got to continue to get better as a football team week in and week out, and get some of our guys back that we're missing — that'll help us out as well — but good win for our guys tonight, really good one."
