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SALT LAKE CITY — Stop Bryce Love.
That’s all Utah football talk was about heading into the heavyweight matchup against Stanford at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday night.
While the Utes gave the Cardinal's running back a hard time, it wasn’t enough as they suffered their first loss of the season.
“We did a lot of good things on defense, but we did not do enough,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said.
Love came into the game with 1,088 yards on 98 carries in five games. In the Cardinal’s first five competitions of the season, he racked up at least 160 yards.
With the running back a focal point in preparation for their homecoming game, the league leaders in rush defense knew what they had to do.
Utah allowed 196 rushing yards from Stanford, and 152 of those yards came from Love. It was his lowest rushing yardage of the season. Against Utah, Love averaged 7.6 yards per carry — also a season low.
“You could tell they game-planned us really well,” said Love. “The scheme of their defense is really coming to fruition. We weren’t moving the ball well in terms of the run game.”
He had runs of 39 and 19 yards in the second quarter, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the fourth quarter that Love broke free, marking his signature long-rushing touchdown. On a two-play, 74-yard drive, Love found the end zone from 68 yards to put Stanford ahead 23-13 and ultimately win the game.
Stanford head coach David Shaw described Utah’s defense as “very physical” and “hard to block.” The seventh-year head coach respects Whittingham’s defense, calling it an NFL-like unit. Shaw said there weren’t many clean places for his team to run the ball, forcing Stanford to tweak a couple of its schemes.
“They have big guys all over the place. They can all hit. They can all tackle,” said Shaw. “We knew with enough opportunities Bryce Love was going to break one or two of them, and he did.”
When asked if the Utes’ run defense is one of the best Stanford has seen this year, Love said it’s “definitely up there.” He credits the safeties for “coming down hard” and the corners for “not being afraid to make tackles.”
“Number 10 was flying around from sideline to sideline,” Love said of Utah linebacker Sunia Tauteoli, who had a game-high 11 tackles, including 3.5 for loss.
“They have a ton of talent out there,” added Love.
Love acknowledges that he won't get 300 yards every game. He said there are always going to be days when things don’t open, especially against a strong defensive line like Utah.
“When stuff is there, you have to take it. When it’s not, you have to get what you can,” said Love. “Thankfully, we’re trained in that aspect going against our defense all the time. Games like this it pays off.”
