No. 12 Utah overwhelms Weber State in 31-7 win to wrap up nonconference play

SALT LAKE CITY — Never doubt Weber State when it travels south to Rice-Eccles Stadium.

The FCS' ninth-ranked program in the country has a way of giving Utah fits each time the two programs play, and Saturday was no different. The game was never really in doubt, but No. 12 Utah allowed the Wildcats to hang around in the first half before pulling away for a 31-7 win in the second half.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Nate Johnson got his first start of his career with Cam Rising still recovering from an ACL injury suffered in January, and performed well enough to move the ball with relative ease. But Weber State did just enough to force Utah into two first-half field goal attempts — the second failed to go off after a botch hold just before the halftime break.

Utah outscored Weber State 17-7 in the first half, but was just 4-of-8 on third down attempts.

"I wouldn't call it a dominant performance or our best football, but we did a lot of good things on offense, a lot of production. ... What we should have done on offense we did," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said.

The Utes wasted little time putting distance on Weber State in the second half, as Johnson orchestrated a nine-play, 68-yard drive over a nearly five minute period that was capped off with a 2-yard rushing touchdown by Jaylon Glover to add to Utah's lead.

From there, it was all Utah in a rout over the visiting FCS program from Ogden.

"It's hard to be in high gear from start to finish, but we did have some stretches where we were not as productive as we needed to be," Whittingham said. "But I think we have a chance to be really good. If we get all our guys intact, we have chance to be really good, but right now we are just doing what we can."

Utah was without several starters again this week, a number that continues to grow as the season moves on. Whittingham said approximately 15-16 players are out due to injury, with three of those coming Saturday during the game. Until all, or at least a majority of the players, are back, Whittingham said the team is doing whatever it can to find wins.

In his first start, Johnson finished the day throwing for 193 yards and one touchdown on 13-of-21 passing, while adding 69 yards on the ground and a 1-yard rushing touchdown after several designed plays for the quarterback. Whittingham praised his backup quarterback for playing error-free football and keeping the offense moving.

"It felt good today, especially to get every receiver the ball to them," Johnson said. "It's a good win."

One of Johnson's benefactors Saturday was Munir McClain, who had 92 receiving yards on just three catches, including a 45-yard catch and run where he fought with a defender for about half of the yards as the defender attempted to bring him down.

Ja'Quinden Jackson, who was forced to visit the medical tent early after limping off the field, returned to action and rushed for 71 yards on 16 carries, while Glover added 47 yards and one touchdown on 12 carries.

Weber State's best play of the day came in the second quarter when running back Damon Bankston found a hole in Utah's defense and exploded down field for a 47-yard run to set up Kris Jackson for a 2-yard rushing touchdown a couple plays later for the team's only score of the day.

Sophomore linebacker Lander Barton said he "missed a gap" and allowed Weber State to get the long run, but defensive end Logan Fano added that the defense, as a whole, "got caught in a bad situation" on the play and Weber State made Utah pay.

Bankston led the Wildcats with 59 rushing yards on eight carries, and was one of the only players to get much going for Weber State on offense. Weber State quarterback Kylan Weisser, who managed only one sack all day, was just 11-of-23 passing for 66 yards as Utah's defense continued to make his life difficult for much of the day.

Weisser avoided problems until he threw a pass to linebacker Lander Barton, who returned it 23 yards for a touchdown, keeping Utah's streak alive of a pick-six touchdown for 20 consecutive seasons, a record for the longest-active streak in the NCAA and a tie with Arizona State for an NCAA record dating back to 1996.

"When you have a lot of opportunities, you're gonna get some some touchdowns out of it, so that's probably the biggest reason I can tell you is we have a defense that's a bunch of ballhawks and is really good at turning the ball over," Whittingham said of the streak.

Early in the fourth quarter, Fano added to the effort and stripped Weisser of the ball on third down and then jumped on the ball for Weber State's second turnover of the day. The defense, in total, held Weber State to just 127 yards and five first downs in the win.

"It would be easy for us to have taken our opponent lightly, but we understand that they're really good football team," Fano said. "Our mentality all through practice was, 'Hey, man, they might not be a super big name team, but they're gonna play really hard, and we've got to show up.'"

Related topics