Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Utah's athletic director Mark Harlan criticized Big 12 officiating after Utah's controversial loss to BYU.
- Two pivotal plays, including a nullified safety and a holding penalty, sparked frustration and claims of unfairness.
- Despite a strong first half, Utah's offense faltered, and injuries, including Brant Kuithe's, impacted their performance.
SALT LAKE CITY — Two plays changed the course of the game — and neither counted as official plays in the record books.
Facing fourth-and-10 on BYU's 9-yard line and down by 2 points with just over a minute left in regulation, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff rolled out of the pocket and had nowhere to go with a swarming Utah's defense in pursuit.
But right as defensive end Logan Fano attempted to sack Retzlaff in the pocket, the lead ref whistled the play dead, citing a timeout called by head coach Kalani Sitake — even with several seconds taken off the clock.
So the two teams tried it again after a short timeout.
This time, linebacker Karene Reid bull rushed Retzlaff and got some help from Junior Tafuna to push the QB into the end zone in what appeared to be a safety — and essentially a win for Utah.
But the play was ruled dead, however, when Utah cornerback Zemaiah Vaughn was called for a holding penalty on the outside to give BYU a new set of downs.
The rest is history as Retzlaff led BYU down field, including completing a 30-yard pass to Chase Roberts, to set up place-kicker Will Ferrin for the game-winning 44-yard field goal.
Ball game.
But those two plays deep inside BYU territory burned Utah officials, including athletic director Mark Harlan and head coach Kyle Whittingham.
Just minutes after the final whistle was blown, Harlan went to the dais and gave a quick, heated statement directed at the Big 12 officiating.
"I've been an athletic director for 12 years," Harlan said. "This game was absolutely stolen from us. We were excited about being in the Big 12, but tonight I am not. We won this game. Someone else stole it from us. Very disappointed. I will talk to the commissioner. This was not fair to our team. I'm disgusted by the professionalism of the officiating crew tonight."
Both Harlan and Whittingham were both seen on the ESPN broadcast confronting the officials for its part in the finish, with Whittingham saying later "things out there were ridiculous."
A frustrated Whittingham tried to avoid the subject in his postgame press conference, but the emotions were too raw.
"No, I don't want to go over those," he said. "They are what they are; they are what they are. It's a ridiculous situation. I'm not going to get into it, so, yeah."
He further expounded, saying his frustration boiled down to the "two previous calls."
"Game was all been over — it was over, but then it wasn't," he said.
Whittingham said his players "battled" and "did everything they could from start to finish," and that the loss was "not on them, it's not on them."
"It's unfortunate that turned out the way it did," he added.
Though the two unofficial plays had an outcome on the game's finish, Utah failed to score any points in the second half after controlling a 21-10 lead at the halftime break. With Brandon Rose under center in his first start at Utah, the offense finally had a spark.
Until it didn't.
Utah seemingly got conservative in the second half — a noticeable change from a first half in which Utah outplayed BYU — and struggled to get the ball moving on several drives. But Whittingham said the team "just didn't quite have it."
He then pointed out that senior tight end Brant Kuithe was not able to play in the second half after suffering a season-ending injury, which limited some of what Utah was able to do.
"Unfortunately, he's out for the year; and unfortunately, it looks serious," Whittingham said. "He was tackled from behind from what I heard on the play. He was running a route, and he didn't even get the ball thrown to him, and was tackled from behind — from what I've been told; I haven't, obviously seen it."
After being held to a three-and-out series on its first drive of the game — three straight running play — and an interception on the second drive on a reverse pass from Rose to Damien Alford, who lofted it in the air into triple coverage, Utah's offense finally got going.
A little over a minute into the second quarter, Rose connected with Kuithe in the front corner of the end zone for a 20-yard touchdown catch, giving the Utes a 7-3 lead over the visiting Cougars. But BYU answered back immediately with a 96-yard kickoff return to retake the lead.
Minutes later, Kuithe found the end zone again on a 12-play, 75 yards drive that took a little over seven minutes before he scored on a 1-yard Wildcat run to reclaim the lead. And then just before the halftime break, Utah extended its lead on a 7-yard touchdown pass to Micah Bernard, who extended the ball out to hit the pylon for a touchdown and a 21-10 halftime lead.
It's the first time this season a team has scored 21 points on BYU in the first half.
But it was all Utah could muster in the end.
