Analysis: Looking for why Utah lost at Washington? 2 penalties, anemic offense a start

SEATTLE — There will be no third consecutive Pac-12 championship for the University of Utah.

No third consecutive trip to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, no third consecutive crack at a New Year's Six bowl, no December moment you're going to talk about forever. No, the University of Washington saw to that Saturday afternoon, overcoming these Utes, while reestablishing itself as a College Football Playoff contender in the process.

Yeah, everything you're thinking about this game we're going to talk about now and into the coming days.

The prolific first half, the anemic second half. The pass interference call on Zemaiah Vaughn, the offensive pass interference on Miki Suguturaga. Michael Penix Jr., and Rome Odunze, and missed opportunities. All of it has you frustrated, and most of it is valid. The tale of two halves, the officiating, the opponent, fine.

Be that as it may, it's a loss; and not only is it a loss, it is effectively a season-ender as far as what's now possible. Beyond that, if Cam Rising decides not to return for a seventh year in 2024, maybe Saturday eventually gets looked at as the end of an era. A highly-successful, championship-winning, paradigm-shifting period in Utah's 117-season football history.

Eventually, there will be a proper appreciation for all of it, but that's for a little later. Saturday was frustrating. It started better than any rational observer would have signed on for, offered enough chances to keep it that way, and ultimately came up short.

Too short to reach that ultimate goal in 19 days.

Those two penalties everyone's talking about

Kyle Whittingham said the officials "got their money's worth on Saturday" (more on that below), and well, he's right given there were 19 combined penalties for 197 yards. As a point of reference, Utah entered the day as one of the least-penalized teams in the country at five per game, but committed an uncharacteristic eight for 97 yards.

Two of those eight stand out.

Late in the second quarter with Utah up 21-17, Washington faced third-and-10 at the Utes' 28-yard line. Penix Jr. sailed a pass well out of bounds intended for Odunze, but Vaughn was called for pass interference. There was definitely contact there and the flag was necessary, but even to the naked eye, the pass was uncatchable.

The refs did not rule the pass was uncatchable, though, so the call stood. Three plays later on third-and-2 from the 5, Dillon Johnson took a direct snap out of the shotgun for a touchdown and a 24-21 lead.

People can argue about the notion of an uncatchable ball, but in this case, Victor Wembanyama wasn't making that catch. Bad call.

On second-and-4 from his own 26, with 9:39 to play in the fourth quarter and Utah trailing by 7, Bryson Barnes hit Suguturaga for an 8-yard gain, but the completion was waived off after Suguturaga was called for offensive pass interference. Instead of fresh downs, Utah faced second-and-17 and eventually punted.

I've watched the Suguturaga penalty 15 times looking for the penalty. With the angle provided by FOX, it's just not there. Washington proceeded to milk seven minutes worth of clock before having a field goal blocked.

Whittingham was asked specifically about the Suguturaga penalty. He expectedly declined to comment, but his "got their money's worth on Saturday" soundbite was geared more toward the overall tenor of the game. I've half-jokingly said a lot that while Whittingham will generally not tell you everything he's thinking, he will often lead you down the path.

This was one of those instances. Without actually saying it, I walked out of that postgame press conference feeling pretty clear that Whittingham thought the officiating left something to be desired.

The second half offense

In the first half, Utah connected on passing plays of 41, 53, and 68 yards, respectively. Barnes looked terrific in passing for 238 first-half yards and Devaughn Vele's late-season awakening continued. By the time halftime arrived, Utah was in control, and there was an increased belief that if the Utes kept going tempo, as they did at times vs. Arizona State, the Huskies weren't going to have enough.

Here are Utah's first six plays of the second half: Barnes to Sione Vaki for 2 yards, Barnes run for 1, incomplete pass (punt), incomplete pass, Sione Vaki direct-snap run for a 4-yard loss, incomplete pass (punt).

The entire tone changed coming out of the locker room. Yes, Washington got a little more aggressive, a little more stout, but the point remains.

After getting anything it wanted through the air for two quarters against a Washington pass defense that is notoriously shaky, Utah stopped trying to press the issue, stopped putting pressure on. Washington has been wobbly for the last month since beating Oregon, and Utah failed to capitalize on that.

In the second half, the Utes registered 76 total yards. Only 16 of those came in the fourth quarter when they ran a total of seven plays.

You know the old tale-of-two-halves cliche? That was a living, breathing thing on offense Saturday afternoon.

I thought Utah giving up 457 yards of total offense, including 332 on 24-of-42 to Penix Jr. belied the job the defense did. Defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley called up plenty of pressure, and while there were times where it felt the defense was a half step away from getting home, they got in Penix Jr.'s face and made things difficult.

In the first half especially, there were a couple of balls at receivers' feet, a couple of sailed passes, and at least one instance where he missed a receiver for a walk-in touchdown. Penix Jr. was going to put up some numbers, but Utah made it tough.

Related: 1,000-yard receiver Rome Odunze is special. He caught just three passes, but they went for 111 yards and two of them were touchdowns. If you want to hammer the defense for something, you can start with getting stuck one-on-one vs. Odunze, which happened on all three completions, and at least half of his game-high 11 targets.

Utah has been a worthy Pac-12 champion

Even with your quarterback and a healthier roster, objectively, getting a third Pac-12 championship was going to be very tough. The Pac-12 is very good this year and the Utes schedule has been rugged as they've played and lost to the three-best teams in the league: Oregon State, Oregon and Washington.

If Utah was going to get another one, everything had to go right. Very little has gone right, especially on offense in the month of September, and the Utes were still 6-1 before facing the Ducks.

This is not Whittingham's best coaching job, but one could argue it's in the conversation given the amount of injuries and the strength of the league. This is a topic for later, but a potential nine-win season with this roster and those injuries against that schedule is fairly remarkable.

Bigger picture, Utah has been a worthy conference champion. The 2021 season was a mess. Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe died within nine months of each other, the latter in the middle of the season. Charlie Brewer quit the team, paving the way for Rising, who was coming off major shoulder surgery.

Rising was a revelation that season, taking Utah places it had never been. Two highly-emotional beatings of Oregon in 13 days, the takeover of Allegiant Stadium for the Pac-12 title game, the Rose Bowl epic vs. Ohio State.

To repeat in 2022 as the favorite was uncharted waters. It wasn't a Pac-12 game, but the nine-month buildup to Florida and the way it ended with the Rising interception were profound. His tour de force in the first USC game was forever-type stuff. The loss at Oregon, needing all the tiebreakers the next week to go back to Vegas, hammering USC once in Vegas.

It has been a proverbial roller coaster, and if you've been on it this whole time, you have to be nauseous at this point, and that's fine.

Again, nobody ever said getting to this point would be easy. Pac-12 championship game losses in 2018 and 2019 were brutal for different reasons. The wins in 2021 and 2022 were sweet for their own respective reasons, some of them because of who is no longer here, others having to do with getting back to the mountaintop a second time.

I do get the sense there is a strong, almost universal appreciation for what 2021 and 2022 were. I wonder how those teams will age in the hearts and minds of this fan base 10, 15 years from now.

Other things on my mind

• Vaki had five touches for 63 yards on offense. He should have had the ball in his hands a lot more Saturday. If he emerged in previous weeks as arguably your most-dangerous offensive weapon, why not do more with that?
• If you line up Oregon and Washington right now on a neutral field, I like the Ducks by at least a touchdown. The Huskies may be unbeaten, but those teams have gone in different directions since they played each other in Seattle on Oct. 14, a 36-33 Washington win.
• If you thought Rising was going to mail it in after he was finally ruled out for the season last month, consider the fact he made the trip to Seattle, and has been in uniform at Monday walkthrough at least twice in the last three weeks. That could mean absolutely nothing, but it's been noticeable.
• Between Lake Washington and the crowd, the atmosphere at Husky Stadium lived up to its billing. That was an announced sellout of 70,976. There were some pockets of empty seats, but we'll call the place full and very, very loud. The open-air press box really gives you a good feel for what that building is; and on Saturday, it was awesome.
• Jackson: 10 carries for 29 yards, clearly not himself with the ankle, which has been apparent for weeks. With a third conference loss, maybe Jackson doesn't sit at all the rest of the way, but it bears watching to see if he does. The guess here is that he keeps going for two more regular-season games left, with the bowl game a good time to call it a season.
• Whittingham's opening statement postgame was moral victory-adjacent, which nobody wants to hear at this level. I don't think he means to do that, I just think that a postgame press conference, 15 minutes after a game, with the emotions raw, and without the benefit of seeing film, is not conducive to getting a great answer to much of anything. Whittingham is exponentially better with the media on Mondays than he is on Saturdays. Just my observation/opinion.

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