Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- In the wake of two consecutive losses, Utah football team captain Junior Tafuna candidly acknowledged the team's overall poor performance, emphasizing emotional accountability.
- Defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley praised the leadership and courage of Tafuna and other players for facing the challenges and addressing their shortcomings.
- Despite preseason expectations and challenges such as injuries and inconsistencies, the team remains committed to improving, focusing on tackling and acknowledging both their strengths and areas needing development.
SALT LAKE CITY — In the immediate aftermath of Utah's second loss of the season, team captain Junior Tafuna attempted to answer for the team's struggles in Tempe.
But as he gave a simple and succinct answer — "Just not playing well all around" — he was caught up in his emotions. It was all he could say that night. But the emotions he publicly emitted spoke more than anything else that night.
It was the antithesis of a defensive lineman seen weeks ago hyping up the fans in the stadium to bring more passion.
"He's emotional about everything — any and everything," linebacker Johnathan Hall said. "We already kind of knew he was going to be emotional; and shoot, we was emotional, too. He showed his personality through his emotions, so we love him, man, and we love the passion that he had."
After a trying few weeks, Utah, as a collective group, knew it should have been the better team in the last two games, but for a number of reasons — only which the coaches and players can fully understand — the Utes faltered.
Utah, simply put, hasn't been good enough the last couple weeks — all around, like Tafuna said Friday night.
"It takes a lot of courage to face the media after losses, and I love that kid," Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley said. "What a warrior. You can tell how much it means to him, and how much it means to our guys. I'm grateful for guys like that, leaders that will step up and face those situations.
"Love our group, love their attitude," he added. "They're fighters, and we're doing some really good things, and there's, obviously, things that we need to fix."
The preseason expectations for a team that was picked to win the Big 12 don't suddenly make everything work or come together.
Sure, the team hasimproved at almost every position group, had a veteran quarterback returning to lead an offense, and had a group committed long before fall camp putting in the hard work, the long hours required to make a team better.
Instead, it resulted in back-to-back losses and a fall from the team's hopes of a College Football Playoff bid.
It would be easy for the team to rely on its excuses — that same veteran QB is out again with another season-ending injury, the defense is missing at least four starters, and Utah is starting a freshman QB — but none of that sits right with this team.
It's a team, especially on the defensive side of the ball, that knows it can be much better.
"We've got guys, like I said, that are competing, they care, it matters to them," Scalley said. "It's fun to come to work every day. Losing is no fun for anybody, and it hurts; but, man, you've gotta control what you can control, and focus on deficiencies and where we can get better. And we're doing that."
The inconsistencies on the offense — largely hurt by the back-and-forth nature of whether Cam Rising would be under center every given week due to an injury to his throwing hand — has had no bearing on the defense. It's a defense that simply has its own issues to address.
"Our deficiencies have nothing to do with the offense," Scalley said. "Our job is to keep points off the board, and we need to do that better."
It all starts with better technique at tackling. Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said the team missed 19 tackles on Friday — none more important than the ones that allowed Cam Skattebo to escape for 50- and 47-yard touchdowns runs late to give the Sun Devils the win.
"Tackling, obviously, being one of the bigger issues, and it's just a matter of wrapping up, not throwing shoulders, understanding that you've got to get a guy's legs to get him down," Scalley said. "Our guys know that. ... We've got to control what we can control, fix what we need to fix; and, obviously, tackling, we're addressing that."
Tackling is the No. 1 thing on every defensive player's mind this week as Utah attempts to correct mistakes that have shown up on the field the last couple weeks. But Scalley stressed, too, the importance to recognize the good things when they come, too.
"We need to be able to take the ball away, and we need to be able to tackle better, but there's some really good things that are going on, and you've got to be able to focus on what you're doing right, as well as where our deficiencies are," he said. "And we're continually looking at that, and guys are competing."
Hall said it's simple, and likely just comes down to "just us" — taking ownership for everything and working together to improve as a collective effort.
"We probably just need to regroup and come back together even stronger," Hall said. "We had a team meeting yesterday and said we need to buy in, everybody buy in. And so I think we're gonna do that, and I think we're gonna shock the world."
