Analysis: Utah's blowout of Arizona State afforded right to play more meaningful football

SALT LAKE CITY — How this University of Utah football season ultimately ends remains to be seen, but here is one thing that is still clear.

The calendar is into November, and the games are still meaningful. Meaningful, as in hopes of advancing back to the Pac-12 championship game remain. When you consider the amount of injuries this team has accumulated, both minor and major, Cam Rising and Brant Kuithe aside, to be in this position doesn't seem at all rational, but here these Utes are.

Utah's latest November stretch run opened Saturday with a 55-3 bludgeoning of Arizona State, which came a week after the Utes suffered their own bludgeoning at the hands of Oregon.

You can judge the Sun Devils all you want, cast aside this Utah victory as one it was supposed to win anyway. Maybe that's true, but either way, a week after Utah failed to meet the moment vs. the Ducks, it offered a reminder that it intends to hang around for a while, intends to at least make life difficult for anyone trying to wrestle the Pac-12 championship game trophy away.

Next up? A trip to Seattle to face 9-0, fifth-ranked Washington, one of the few teams with a realistic chance left of taking control of the throne next month in Las Vegas. Utah has been down this road before, needing wins, needing outside help to defend the conference title.

What happens next remains to be seen, but Saturday afforded this Utah team the right to find out.

The offense was a revelation, especially early

Arizona State might be 2-7, but it plays defense. The Sun Devils entered Saturday ranked fourth in the Pac-12 and 39th nationally in total defense (340.9 yards per game), and fifth in the Pac-12 and 39th nationally in rush defense (104.4).

Utah's offense, stymied for much of September and certainly against Oregon when it went without a touchdown, finished with 513 yards of total offense, including 352 on the ground. Both of those numbers are season highs.

If anybody was worried that Utah would be suffering from an Oregon hangover, those worries were swept away in the first quarter.

Bryson Barnes was 5-for-5 for 49 yards on the day's opening drive, hitting three different receivers along the way. Within that, optimism lived as Barnes hit tight end Landen King for 14 (more on King below), and hit wide receiver Devaughn Vele twice for 21 yards (more on Vele below).

On the second drive, more optimism: Ja'Quinden Jackson up the middle for 5, Jackson up the middle for 16, Jackson up the middle for 4. Later, Barnes hit Dijon Stanley for 14 on third-and-3 from the Arizona State 22-yard line after the freshman running back flexed out wide.

By the time those two drives ended, Utah was up 14-0, Vele caught his first two touchdowns of the season in the season's ninth game, and Barnes looked completely in command.

Barnes, who has been the unquestioned starter since Oct. 14 vs. Cal, has been very solid in three of the last four games, and with each passing game, it is clear that offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig is expanding what he is willing to give Barnes, which speaks to Ludwig's trust in the fourth-year sophomore growing.

Barnes finished 19-for-28 for 161 yards, a career-high four touchdown passes and zero interceptions. He added seven carries for 56 yards, at least three of which were by design as Utah went tempo at times.

This is why Devaughn Vele returned

Around mid-November of last season, Vele sounded pretty firm that 2022 would be his final season at Utah. He was leaving two years of eligibility on the table, but he knew he wanted to take his shot at the NFL. As a 24-year-old returned missionary, Vele knew time was not on his side, so it was probably time to go.

Somewhere between then and roughly the Rose Bowl, that plan changed. Vele wanted (needed?) more film because after all, 2022 was his breakout season and he had not played a ton beforehand. More film, the fact Cam Rising intended to return in 2023, and NIL considerations all helped drive Vele back to Utah this fall as a fifth-year junior, but it's been a struggle.

Rising has not and will not play a snap, and Utah spent six weeks getting its QB situation straightened out. The trickle-down effect there contributed to Vele having just 15 catches and zero TDs over Utah's first six games.

Speed ahead to now. Barnes is entrenched as the starter while getting all of the first-team reps on a weekly basis. As Barnes has gained increasing comfortability, a rapport with Vele has emerged. Vele caught seven passes in each of the last two games for 139 yards and the two touchdowns against Arizona State.

Vele had 10 targets for Oregon, to which Kyle Whittingham later said they should have gone to him more. Vele again had 10 targets vs. ASU, but there was a concerted effort to get him going early. One first-quarter touchdown pass to Vele came with him wide open in the end zone off a miscommunication at the line of scrimmage, the other came with him wide open again in the back of the end zone, this one after Barnes let the play develop.

Utah is a lot better, a lot more dangerous on offense when Vele has it going, which happened very few times early this season, but it's happening now, just as Barnes has settled in and the Utes need all the weapons they can muster. Vele's last two weeks give him team-highs in receptions (29) and yards (337).

When Ja'Quinden Jackson has it going ...

Just to be clear, Jackson has spent much of this season, not so much injured, per se, but constantly dinged up. Specifically, he has been grinding through an ankle injury suffered in the opener vs. Florida, and that keeps creeping up.

Jackson has missed just one game at Oregon State, but he has had to come off due to the ankle injury 3-4 times that I can remember, and maybe more. On Saturday, Jackson ripped off a 54-yard touchdown run on a great piece of blocking, but had his legs landed on in the end zone. He had to be helped off and did not return.

I said all of that to now point out that before the injury, Jackson looked fresh, and when he looks fresh, he is a terrific inside runner, capable of going downhill and willing to lower a shoulder to crush a defender at the second level.

Jackson finished Saturday with 13 carries for 111 yards and the touchdown. Five of the 13 runs went for at least five yards as Utah averaged 7.2 yards per carry on 49 attempts. Jackson has 598 rushing yards and is now averaging 5.3 yards per carry in what has been, in my humble opinion, a pretty underrated season, his first as a full-time running back.

The cautious assumption is that Jackson will work his way through another week of practice and be fully available at Washington, but that should be considered TBD for the moment.

Other things on my mind

• Utah could have used a USC win over Washington as the Utes need a bunch of help to get to the Pac-12 championship, but either way, the fact remains they need to win out before anything else. If they don't win at Washington first, there's nothing else to discuss.
• We may touch on this more ahead of Washington, but Utah went tempo early in the second quarter, including designed runs for Bryson Barnes. That bears watching because as far as I can remember, Andy Ludwig had not yet shown that wrinkle, and he certainly hasn't done much, or anything in the way of designed keepers for Barnes.
• Utah had four sacks against Arizona State's third and fourth quarterbacks, the latter of which was BYU transfer Jacob Conover. Jonah Elliss is now up to 11.5 sacks for the season after coming up with 1.5 on Saturday. That Utah defensive front is so stacked right now that Simote Pepa and Aliki Vimahi both saw late reserve duty with the outcome no longer in doubt. Good problems to have.
• Sione Vaki played zero offensive snaps, but started at his usual safety spot and played most of the way until the starters were relieved. There isn't much to read into here. Frankly, Utah didn't need any offense out of Vaki and today was a good day to scale things back. That, and he has been a bit ill, not to mention banged up of late.
• I know Kyle Whittingham wants to keep everything positive, as he said at the tail end of his postgame press conference, but I'll do my job instead. Here's two things to nitpick: Special teams gave up a 78-yard kickoff return to Elijhah Badger in the first quarter, which yielded a field goal. Sataoa Laumea's personal foul penalty in the second quarter on second-and-6 from the 8 turned that into second-and-21 from the 23. Cole Becker later missed a 37-yard field goal. I'm sure there's more, but those two stand out.
• Jaylon Glover: 14 carries, 64 yards, much of it coming after Ja'Quinden Jackson was lost for the day. That's forward progress in what has been a tough season for the sophomore.
• Per an athletic department official, Saturday was Utah's sixth day game of the season (kickoff at 3:45 p.m. local or earlier), the most since 2014. That mark will be eclipsed at Washington after that game was announced later Saturday evening as a 12:30 p.m. local kickoff in Seattle.

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