So, we were out of town officiating a race

We missed the game. I did get to see a couple of updates after we got back to our hotel. I read some of the ESPN recap. It appears our O and D lines are somewhat inept this season, just based on the article, and our 2 previous games. Obviously BYU manhandled both of our lines, and Weber was surprisingly good against them too.

So, for someone who couldn’t watch the game, wtf happened? I saw that Cam Rising got in, and played well in 4th qtr, and I presume OT. Reading some of the comments, it appears he and Brewer had to do a fair amount of scrambling. To go along with that, our running game seems uncharacteristically bad.

Is what I feared about the BYU game being indicative of our season true? Or as a fan, am I overreacting?

Anyway, TIA. Hopefully our Utes can beat up at least one set of cougars this season.

SDSU saw the film from last week, brought pressure from a lot of different directions, the offense really struggled to get anything going.

The D was pretty good early. When it was 10-10, both teams’ TDs had come on special teams. We gave up a other KO return, and Covey took a punt back 80 yards.

The first part of the 3rd was a house of horrors for our D. Their QB Johnson took off on a 65 yard jaunt, then they punched it in, then Brewer threw a pick, and they punched in another. 24-10 before we knew what happened.

Enter Rising, against a team that thought they had it sewn up. He was really quite good, both evading the rush and moving in the pocket. The team definitely perked up - both sides of the ball - particularly the WRs, and we got a spark, forced it in to OT.

Both teams scored TDs in the first OT, for us Rising throwing a long curve ball to Jaylen Dixon on the first play. In the 2nd OT both teams missed FGs, somehow. In the 3rd OT the new format is both teams need to go for 2, line up at the 3. SDSU went first, got the 2. Rising threw to O’Toole, who appeared to catch it, but was overturned on review. End of game.

How Rising does vs Wazzu remains to be seen, but he was definitely the spark to get us back into an otherwise embarrassing game. Against SDSU Rising carved up their D nicely when they rushed 4, and was innovative on his feet when they brought pressure. No problem at all with his arm strength (a common lingering issue after the kind of injury he had last year) and reports from camp that he has a nice touch on the long ball were accurate.

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