Utah Utes running back Zack Moss (2) evades the tackle from California Golden Bears cornerback Elijah Hicks (3) on a run during the game at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2019. | Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
Utah now leads the nation in rushing defense, faces Washington Saturday in Seattle.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah moved into the top 10 this week. A day after a 35-0 win over California at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Utes climbed to No. 9 in the latest Associated Press rankings and No. 10 in the coaches poll.
The climb comes on the heels of an extremely dominant performance. Utah racked up 473 yards of total offense and the defense posted its first-ever shutout in a Pac-12 game.
“Just proud of our guys. It’s a product of their Monday through Friday work,” said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. “This team practices exceptionally well and prepares exceptionally well and it shows in the last several Saturdays.”
The Utes (7-1, 4-1) enter this week’s Pac-12 Championship Game rematch at Washington (5-3, 2-3) with four straight victories. They’ve outscored the opposition 146-23 during the ongoing streak.
The Huskies, though, may present a bigger challenge than Washington State, Oregon State, Arizona State and Cal have in recent weeks. They are the defending Pac-12 champs, after all, having topped the Utes 10-3 last December to earn a berth in the Rose Bowl.
“They are a good football team. I know they dropped some games this year, but they’ve got talent. They have a big, strong quarterback (Jacob Eason) that’s got a big arm. Tremendous receivers, running back, lines are solid,” Whittingham said. “They’re the Huskies and they’ve got as good of talent as anybody in the league for certain. I think we’ve only won once there since we’ve been in the Pac-12, so we got our work cut out for us.”
Utah currently is tied for first in the Pac-12 South with USC. Remaining games after the trip to Seattle include UCLA and Colorado at home, plus a trip to Arizona.
“Every game is a big game. Everybody is good in the Pac-12 and each week we need to come out and play great football because there are some teams that you wouldn’t expect to lose, and they lose every week,” said senior cornerback Terrell Burgess. “So we just need to prepare for this next week just like any other week and make sure we play assignment sound football and come out and hope it goes well for us.”
Burgess explained that the Utes are determined to stay focused.
“We just know what we are after. There are a lot of guys in the locker room that love playing for each other and love being with each other and love the coaches,” he said. “So I think it’s just the fact that we know exactly what we are after. We are just trying to make sure that this season is special.”
Such was the case Saturday. Senior running back Zack Moss paced the offense with 115 yards rushing and 89 yards receiving. He added most career rushing touchdowns (32) and most career 100-yard rushing games (15) to his school record for rushing yards.
Senior quarterback Tyler Huntley also had a solid outing, completing 11 of 17 passes for 214 yards.
The defense, meanwhile, was exceptionally strong. The Utes held Cal to just 83 yards and six first downs. Senior defensive tackle Leki Fotu acknowledged it meant a lot to get a shutout in conference play.
“All the hard work that we have put in during the offseason — throughout this week — paid off,” he said. “Everybody was locked in during the game.”
Utah kept Cal to 23 yards rushing. The effort lifted the Utes to No. 1 in the nation in defending the run. They’re giving up just 56.4 yards per game — 12 fewer than second-place Penn State.
“The defensive line, we take a lot of pride in that. We try to be the No. 1 D-line, especially in the run game,” Fotu said. “Coming off this game I felt like we dominated the line of scrimmage up front and that’s something that’s positive and we are pretty happy to hear about that.”
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