Tag: Utah Football

Tony’s Take: Predicting the final score of Colorado’s season finale at Utah

We could be in for a battle of the backup QBs

Colorado’s 2023 season finale at Utah was initially supposed to be a showdown between two of the Pac-12’s best quarterbacks, Sheduer Sanders and Cam Rising. But with Rising officially out for the year and Sanders battling injuries, we could now be in for a battle of the backup quarterbacks.

Reports emerged on Friday that Utah is expected to start walk-on Luke Bottari while Colorado will likely run out freshman Ryan Staub if Sanders can’t go.

CU featured the run plenty last week after Staub entered in relief of Sanders. If Staub starts, it will be up to him and the Buffs’ running game to put up points against a tough Utes defense. Because Colorado has struggled both offensively and defensively in the run game, I don’t see the Buffs coming away with the victory.

Colorado will put up a fight but I see Utah pulling away late. My final score prediction is Utah 24, CU 14.

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Colorado at Utah: Stream, injury report, broadcast info for Saturday

Where will you be watching Colorado’s season finale?

We’ve reached the final Saturday of the college football regular season.

Earlier this fall, Colorado was the biggest story in the sport, but Deion Sanders’ Buffs (4-7, 1-7 Pac-12) are now riding a five-game losing streak heading into their finale at Utah (7-4, 4-4). Head coach Kyle Whittingham’s Utes have also fallen off recently, though, with losses in three of their last four games.

The Buffs will be looking for their first win at Rice-Eccles Stadium since 2011 when Colorado and Utah met for the first time as Pac-12 members.

Now 12 years later, the Buffs and Utes will play their final Pac-12 Conference game on Saturday before joining the Big 12 next year.

REPORT: Utah expected to start walk-on quarterback Luke Bottari vs. Colorado

Utah is reportedly expected to start a walk-on quarterback against Colorado

Utah is expected to start walk-on quarterback Luke Bottari in Saturday’s regular season finale against Colorado, according to Josh Newman.

Typical Utah starter Bryson Barnes is apparently unavailable and Newman also reported that redshirt freshman QB Nate Johnson intends to enter the transfer portal, leaving Bottari as the next man up.

So, who is Bottari? After setting eight school passing records at Junipero Serra High School in California, Bottari played at College of San Mateo from 2019-21. He then transferred to Utah as a preferred walk-on prior to the 2022 season but has yet to see any game action with the Utes.

It’s also possible that Colorado will start true freshman Ryan Staub in place of the injured Shedeur Sanders, who left last week’s game at Washington State early with an injury. On Tuesday, head coach Deion Sanders said Shedeur is considered day-to-day.

If Bottari and Staub indeed face off, it could be a big day for both teams’ running backs.

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What Coach Prime and the Buffs are saying heading into their season finale

Check out what Coach Prime and the Buffs are saying this week heading into Saturday’s season finale

No longer in contention for a bowl game, Colorado will play for pride this weekend at Utah.

The Buffs enter their final week of the season — and their final football game as Pac-12 members — with a record of 4-7. Following a 3-0 start, the past month has certainly been disappointing, but Deion Sanders made it clear that there’s still plenty to be proud of. Coach Prime and his staff did inherit a one-win team, after all.

Ahead of Saturday’s season finale at Rice-Eccles Stadium, Coach Prime, linebacker LaVonta Bentley, running back Sy’veon Wilkerson and edge rusher Arden Walker all spoke to the media. Here’s what they had to say:

Five storylines to follow heading into Colorado’s 2023 season finale at Utah

We’ll be watching these five storylines heading into Colorado’s season finale

As unimaginable as it seems, we have entered the final week of Deion Sanders’ first season leading the Buffs. This season has given Colorado fans their fair share of ups and downs, but there is no denying that the future looks promising in Boulder

The final task for Coach Prime’s Buffs will be a road matchup against the Utah Utes, who are now no longer ranked in the US LBM Coaches Poll following a Week 12 loss at Arizona.

Saturday’s showdown against the Utes is more about finishing the right way than anything else. After a promising 3-0 start to the season, the Buffs have since gone 1-7 and have lost five straight.

Here are some of the top storylines to follow heading into Colorado’s season finale at Rice-Eccles Stadium:

A goal-line Washington fumble on a near pick-six became a safety in wild sequence vs. Utah

Just like Washington drew it up.

During Washington’s home game against Utah on Saturday afternoon, an explosive play on defense turned into an absolute disaster before winding up all working out in the end for the Huskies.

In one of those “what just happened” type of moments, Utah quarterback Bryson Barnes threw an interception right into the hands of Washington linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala, who would run it back to the house for a seeming pick-six.

However, Tuputala would fumble the ball right before crossing the touchdown plane. Utah would recover the ball and essentially punt the ball back to itself deep into its own territory.

Right after that, the Huskies would come up with a huge safety, giving them two points out of the sequence instead of seven.

If you’re scratching your head and trying to figure out what in the world just happened here, don’t worry. We’ve got a full breakdown of how this wild sequence went down.

Why N.C. State’s Dave Doeren said Steve Smith Sr. ‘can kiss my [expletive]’ after win over Clemson

Why was Dave Doeren so mad at Steve Smith Sr. after NC State beat Clemson?

If you are wondering why North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren told former NFL wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. to “kiss his ass” during a postgame interview, you are not alone.

After Doeren and the NC State Wolfpack toppled Clemson, 24-17, at home on Saturday to get to 5-3 on the season, the coach gave a feisty postgame jab at Smith by telling him that NC State isn’t a basketball school and that he can “kiss his ass.”

Look, we get being excited and all over a Clemson win, but what does Smith have to do with this? Well, it turns out the insult actually makes a lot of sense.

Smith, a Utah alumnus, appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay this week while the show broadcasted from Salt Lake City. He also joked about NC State’s chances of beating Clemson as he picked the Tigers to win.

“Clemson has been struggling,” Smith told the College GameDay crew. “They’re not the Clemson that we’ve loved over the years. But NC State, unfortunately, they’re waiting for basketball to start.”

Okay, we now see why Doeren was so salty toward Smith after the game.

NC State isn’t really known for a single sport as much as them just being relatively competitive across plenty of sports, so Doeren is right to defend his program’s honor after such a big win.

However, the whole situation was a bit strange if you didn’t have a good bit of context.

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Cam Rising, Brant Kuithe didn’t play USC this year, but they might not be done at Utah

A lot of people are asking this question.

No. 14 Utah is midway through its 2023 season and is sitting at 6-1. However, starting quarterback Cameron Rising and tight end Brant Kuithe have yet to play in 2023. This naturally leads to the question: Could the Utes’ star players apply for a medical hardship?

Rising redshirted in the 2018 season while at Texas, then sat out 2019 after transferring to Utah. Under the old system, he would have been ineligible for a medical redshirt. However, those rules are gone.

The senior QB played just one game in 2020 before suffering a season-ending injury. He played 13 games apiece in 2021 and ‘22, but suffered a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus in the 2023 Rose Bowl.

Kuithe, meanwhile, has never had a redshirt season, though he has been granted extra years of eligibility based on the number of games played.

He played in all 14 games in 2018, and did the same in 2019. Based on the 2020 season being limited to just five games because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was granted another year of eligibility.

He then played all 14 games in 2021, but because he played fewer than five games in 2022 (he suffered a torn ACL in the fourth game of the season), yet another year of eligibility was granted.

According to Whittingham the Utes are still in wait and see mode with their star players.

“It’s just a situation where we are just waiting week after week for the thumbs up,” Whittingham said. “Here we are at the midpoint, so I don’t want to say the clock is ticking, but we’d love to have either or both of those guys back as soon as possible. Again, it’s just a waiting game. We’re waiting for the go-ahead.”

It would also be a matter of whether Rising or Kuithe wanted to return for another year. Rising would be 25 years old next season and Kuithe turns 24 in December.

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Oklahoma fans were right about Lincoln Riley, at least for this specific season.

USC assistants need to be coaching for their jobs.

Lincoln Riley did not assemble an elite 2023 roster, which surprised us and a lot of other observers.

Is USC ready to win in 2024 with Miller Moss or Malachi Nelson at quarterback? Lincoln Riley has to be honest about how he answers that question.

Brent Venables is coaching Oklahoma far better this year than Lincoln Riley is coaching USC. It’s up to Riley to change that reality.

Utah’s not just playing spoiler this year, coming for the Pac-12 title again

The Utes weren’t just playing spoiler for USC this weekend. Kyle Whittingham and his team have their eyes on a three-peat.

If I told you a team with two consecutive conference titles was written off early in the season because of an injury to their star quarterback but found a way to reach 6-1 with multiple ranked wins, you’d probably groan about the inevitability of it all. You’d conjure images of Alabama in your head, or maybe Clemson‘s decade of dominance in the ACC, a broken record always destined to end atop the mountain no matter how the season transpires.

If I told you Utah would win the Pac-12 again, would you have the same reaction?

Yes, we’re a long way from the Utes taking the conference crown for a third straight year. They need to get through Oregon this weekend first, and it’s been confirmed that quarterback Cam Rising isn’t playing this season. ESPN FPI still has Utah with just a 7.7% chance to win the conference.

But Kyle Whittingham’s squad has the 10th-best strength of record in the country. The Utes are allowing 15.0 points per game, behind only UCLA in the conference, and that number only increases to 20.0 points per game against ranked opponents. Only 11 teams in the country are allowing 20.0 points per game or fewer to ranked opponents, and Utah is the only one of them that has played more than two ranked teams. The Utes are the nation’s No. 6 rushing defense and have a top-50 aerial defense to boot.

We’ve grown so used to Utah, which plays a physical brand of football mostly unseen among today’s top programs, taking it to playoff teams that it’s become a punchline.

While there are certainly worse reputations to have in football, this is a team with back-to-back Rose Bowl appearances. They ended the USC playoff dream last year with a 47-24 beatdown, their second win of the season over the Trojans. Two years ago, when Oregon beat Ohio State in September, the Ducks were 9-1 and the No. 4 team in the country when they came to Utah. The Utes beat them 38-7, then beat them again 38-10 in the conference title game just for good measure.

The Utes get Oregon at home again this weekend, where they have a 27-game win streak. The Ducks are probably the most complete team in the Pac-12, top 20 in the nation both offensively and defensively. Utah is averaging just 23.4 points per game, probably not enough to do any serious damage or garner any playoff buzz even if they win out. But with Washington the only defeated team left in the conference and looking mighty mortal against Arizona State, why not the Utes?

If that home win streak extends to 28 on Saturday? Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

ESPN projects Rutgers football to the Las Vegas Bowl? You can bet on it!

ESPN has an intriguing bowl projection for Rutgers football.

Rutgers football could be heading to a glitzy bowl game against a program that has ended seven of their last nine seasons ranked.

On Saturday, Rutgers improved to 6-2 (3-2 Big Ten) with a 31-14 win at Indiana. The win made Rutgers bowl-eligible with four games left in their season.

And if it hasn’t been written and said ad nauseam the past three days, this is the first time since 2014 that Rutgers is outright bowl-eligible. In that season, Rutgers finished an 8-5 season with a win in the Quick Lane Bowl.

ESPN writer Kyle Bonagura has Rutgers playing in the SRS Distributors Las Vegas Bowl against No. 13 Utah (6-1). The game is on Dec. 23.

Last season, Utah finished eighth in the nation. Rutgers has never played in the Las Vegas Bowl.

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The other projection, from Mark Schlabach, has Rutgers in the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl where they would face Boston College. The game, scheduled for Dec. 28, is held annually at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York.

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Geographically, it is the closest bowl game to Rutgers. If this projection, it would be the third time that Rutgers will have appeared in the Pinstripe Bowl.