- Utah's offense struggled in a 34-10 loss to Texas Tech on Saturday.
- Despite offseason changes, Utah managed only 263 yards and 10 points in the game.
- Coach Whittingham and quarterback Dampier expressed disappointment but remained hopeful for improvement.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah football's offense was supposed to be better in 2025.
Following a disappointing, injury-laden 2024 season, Utah's coaching staff revamped the offensive side of the ball during the offseason. Not only did Kyle Whittingham bring in a new offensive coordinator and his star, dual-threat quarterback, but a handful of upgrades to the roster, too.
The roster also returned its entire starting line, with heralded, first-round tackles Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu leading the charge to help provide consistency to the team.
And for the first three weeks of the season, all looked well — outside of some typical early-season lulls and inconsistencies. The offense was efficient and averaged 517 total yards — 290 of which were on the ground — coming into Saturday.
On Saturday, though, in a ranked matchup against Texas Tech at home, Utah's offense fell flat on its face with the nation watching on FOX. The offense generated just 263 total yards of offense and the team only managed 10 points.
(A lot of that credit falls to Texas Tech's standout defensive performance.)
Utah thought it didn't need all 31 of Baskin-Robbins' flavors, vanilla was the ice cream flavor de jour. But like the aforementioned ice cream store, a more exciting option was needed Saturday.
And yet, even Whittingham said he was left without much of an answer as to what happened Saturday.
Unlike Utah's aggressive offensive play-calling against UCLA — the game has been viewed differently in the weeks since UCLA's 0-3 start and firing of its head coach — that was dynamic and diverse, Saturday was a trip back to last season where three-and-out series were a consistent theme.
The offense had brief moments where things worked, but many were marred by turnovers — two fumbles and two interceptions — and costly penalties.
There were multiple sniffed-out screen passes, predictable runs into a congested box, and passes behind the sticks on third down. A down-field threat was essentially nonexistent for much of the game. And then there were questionable decisions on when to punt (or not) on fourth downs.
Utah lived the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
It was an offense that generally couldn't move the ball and left the defense to fend for itself with poor field position. Whittingham described it as not having "much rhythm or much continuity."
"We put ourselves in some tough situations," quarterback Devon Dampier said. "You try to minimize the self mistakes — we consider those more self mistakes than them making plays. So, that's just something we want to control a lot better going into these next following weeks."
Maybe Saturday will turn out to be an anomaly, but with few answers available in the immediacy of the Texas Tech loss, there's concern things won't be different in the coming weeks.
But until things change, the questions will remain — and potentially more losses.
"My guess is they'll answer the bell, but we'll find out," Whittingham said of his team. "The locker room is good. There's a lot of upset people in that locker room and it hurts — and it should. This is a hard-working team, and they prepared well. We had a really good week at practice, and again, for whatever reason, we were in a funk on offense today."
"Yeah, keep your confidence up," Dampier added. "We've been doing this all spring, all fall. It hurts me that we didn't show that today — what we were capable of doing — but, I mean, we know as a team we know what our potential is. No need for that confidence to leave. We'll be back."
