No. 11 Utah edges past Colorado to stay undefeated on the season

BOULDER, Colo. — Utah threatened to be a part of a bad statistic Saturday night.

On a day where eight teams inside the Associated Press Top 25 suffered a loss, Utah found itself trailing Colorado late in the third quarter after a series of unfortunate events for the road team. Could Utah be the ninth?

Utah found a familiar face to help them out, though. With Utah controlling a 3-point lead late in the fourth quarter, former Utes quarterback Isaac Wilson tossed an errant pass to defender James Chenault, who picked off the toss and got deep into Colorado territory.

Utah quarterback Devon Dampier then hit Creed Whittemore for a 25-yard sideline catch, which was followed up by a 6-yard touchdown reception from Braden Pegan to give the Utes some breathing room … for a minute.

Wilson followed up the interception with a touchdown drive, capped off with a 2-yard touchdown reception by DeAndre Moore Jr. with 1:21 left. The ensuing onside kick, however, went into Utah's arms, and the Utes ultimately escaped with a 27-24 win in Boulder.

But even the onside kick recovery wasn't a guarantee for the Utes.

Hoping to milk the clock with just 1:21 left, Colorado used its final two timeouts to avoid the drain. But with no Colorado timeouts remaining on third down for the Utes, Dampier opted to throw a pass that went incomplete instead of taking a sack that could have taken several seconds off the clock before Utah had to punt the ball back to the Buffaloes.

Dampier later owned the error, saying it was on him to be better in the situation.

"I was told to keep that ball if I didn't think I'd complete the ball, and that's totally on me," Dampier said. "I take full accountability of that. I've got great coaches; they very much prepared me for that moment, so I've just got to make it happen."

Wilson then marched Colorado down the field to give his team a game-winning chance. A penalty backed the Buffaloes out of field goal territory and Wilson was forced to make a Hail Mary attempt that went incomplete, giving Utah the road victory.

"Credit to coach (Deion) Sanders and Colorado for the way they competed and fought," Scalley said. "I knew going into this game — I thought this was going to be a battle, particularly their defense and how stout they were. I think you look at really all metrics that matter, and I don't know that we should have won this game — outside of the score.

"But you find a way to get a win," he added. "And you look across college football today, like I say every week, winning is hard. And we're fortunate enough to be on the winning side."

Utah held Colorado to just 70 total yards in the first half, but struggled to contain a motivated Wilson and Buffaloes attack in the second half. Colorado finished the game with 394 yards of total offense and 7.2 yards per play — besting Utah's 5.1 yards per play.

The win, however, gave Utah the longest active FBS winning streak with 12 after multiple previously undefeated teams lost a game Saturday, including Indiana and Notre Dame.

"I just think we didn't click on all cylinders today, but adversity happens," Dampier said. "We've seen multiple games before today. A lot of big teams lost to some non-ranked teams today, and man, football's hard. So, as much as we hate to put ourselves in those situations, I thought at the end of the day, we fought through it. We did what was needed to happen to win this game."

Dampier finished the up-and-down contest throwing for 278 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions on 24-of-41 passing in the win. His counterpart and former teammate, Wilson, ended the night throwing for 256 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions on 18-of-30 passing.

Utah opened up the night with an efficient opening drive score that was capped off with a Hunter Andrews reception for an 8-yard touchdown. But the Utes struggled to convert in the red zone for much of the night to give Colorado a chance.

"Ultimately we didn't finish," Scalley said. "It's finishing in the red zone with touchdowns. Now, a big part of that is their defensive front is pretty active, and they brought quite a bit of pressure all night. I knew that this was going to be somewhat of a battle there, so we'll have to look at the film and see offensive line-wise how we need to improve."

Colorado opened up the second half with a 68-yard touchdown pass, in which Utah narrowly missed out on sacking Isaac Wilson before he connected with a wide open JaQuail Smith, to get their first points of the game. The three-play, 75-yard drive accounted for more yards than Colorado's entire first half.

But the Buffaloes weren't done there.

Colorado forced Utah into a three-and-out series on the ensuing possession, before driving the field for the second time. Wilson capped off the drive with a pitch to DeKalon Taylor, who went 18 yards into the end zone to take a 14-13 lead over Utah with 9:45 left in the third quarter. The Buffaloes later added a 32-yard field goal to control a 4-point lead.

Utah, however, fought back near the end of the third quarter to take a 20-17 lead, with Dampier connecting deep with Creed Whittemore for a 43-yard gain and then a 16-yard touchdown pass to Braden Pegan.

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