It’s impressive that although the Utes went all out to block that punt, they still managed to get back and form a wall for Covey. It was a real Covey Convoy.
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If we play them again they’re going to be motivated, but quite beatable (by us) as we proved yesterday.
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Possible but they have been wildly uneven all year and It’s just as likely that we broke them. Would not surprise me to see OSU follow up next week and even steal the north for themselves or WSU.
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I was surprised how little we heard Dye’s name. Since they were playing from behind, maybe they had to rely on the pass more and they were missing their 2nd and 4th receivers. Brown seemed to hurt his leg a little in the 2nd quarter, so he wasn’t (as much) a threat. It was really important that we came out and got ahead. Just such a complete game in offense amd defense. And STs was an asset, not a liability!
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We got home and stayed up to watch the first half again. Todd Blackledge had some great breakdown on how the Utes took Thibodeaux out of the game. A combo of great planning and execution to leave him in a position of overpursuing to the backfield and having him left to just chase after the play. They wore him out. He was really gassed by the 4th quarter, and a few of us in our section were letting him know it.
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I’d love to see that.
FWIW, from where I was sitting, the Oregon players left the field after the game about 20 feet from me. They looked terribly down in the dumps. I felt bad for them, in a way. They may well be broken. This loss might do to them what the TCU loss did to us, after that TCU beatdown. We let TCU beat us twice when we laid an egg the next week in the Notre Dame game.
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I like the fact that Covey’s punt return started at the 22 yard line.
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And here all this time I though it was the Nike weed farm / pooka shell necklace factory.
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Most of us are assuming that our beloved Utes – peaking at about the right time – will play a rematch with Oregon on Friday evening, December 3rd.
But wait…
Both Oregon State and Washington State can also reach the Pac-12 title game.
The Beavs advance with a win over Oregon in the upcoming Civil War and a Washington State loss to Washington in the Apple Cup. The Cougs advance if they beat Washington and Oregon State beats Oregon.
I fully expect WSU to beat Washington, while nothing is guaranteed. So as it stands, Utah will play a rematch, but it could be Oregon, could be Oregon State, or the coachless Cougars of Washington State.
If @LAUte’s observation about what that loss to Utah could have done to the Ducks, Oregon State will win at home. Honestly, I thought OSU did a nice job last night on the Forks. The Beavs have a good team, made up of hard working kids with a chip on their shoulder. Oregon had better bounce back if they expect a rematch with the surging Utes.
In the event OSU prevails, that means Utah would play Washington State, assuming they continue to win. WSU was Utah’s lowest scoring win, with Cam Rising making his first start in a week our starting QB walked off of the job.
Been a terrific ride so far and I expect the momentum to continue to build. Utah needs to move past this terrific victory to prepare for a very good hard-nosed Colorado.
Go Utes!
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I think a possible wrinkle for Oregon State is that the Apple Cup is played on Friday. If Wazzu wins, Oregon State will know for their game on Saturday that they have no way to go to the Pac-12 Championship. That could be pretty demoralizing for the Beavers.
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I still think they would want to kick the hell out of the Ducks, regardless.
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OSU will want to spike the ducks chances. Even if they can’t make the CCG they’ll want that. But if Wazzu falls they’ll be extra motivated
Personals the Utes have to take care of business…don’t let the big win lead to big egos
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Canzano: Oregon Ducks face moment of truth after devastating blowout loss to Utah
Nov. 20, 2021
By John Canzano | The Oregonian/OregonLive
SALT LAKE CITY – Decide for yourself when it ended for the Oregon Ducks on Saturday night. When they showed up? Kicked off? When the offense struggled to move the ball and the defense couldn’t get Utah off the field?
No wrong answers today.
Utah pummeled Oregon 38-7. Not altitude sickness, folks. Just massive ailments on offense, defense and special teams. The Utes had a better plan, more urgency and superior execution. Up 28-zip at halftime, the Utes assistant coaches scurried out of the press box on level six at Rice-Eccles Stadium, went down the elevator to the locker room for their 20-minute intermission.
Eleven minutes later, they reappeared.
Not much to say, apparently.
Nothing to see here, either.
Oregon’s coaching staff came back to the press box, too, a full nine minutes later. Not because the Ducks’ staff talks or walks slower but because the visitors presumably had a lot more to cover at halftime on Saturday night. And now we’re about to spend a week trying to figure out what Oregon has to play for anymore.
First, though, some credit for the Utes.
Utah was terrific, wasn’t it? Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig carved up the Oregon defense, one play at a time. The Utes offensive line put a cleat in the FieldTurf and drove the Ducks toward the mountains. Mario Cristobal promised the ABC audience before kickoff that this Utah-Oregon game would be a “fistfight.” It was. Unfortunately, Oregon never threw a punch and got knocked out of the College Football Playoff race in a game played in front of 52,724 Salt Lakers.
The Oregon decision to punt to the dangerous Britain Covey trailing 21-0 with 11 seconds before halftime will forever be known as, “The Great Mistake by Salt Lake.” Oregon’s punter Tom Snee could have kicked the ball out of bounds there. He could have hesitated, let a second or two tick off, and then hammered a worm-burner toward Kyle Whittingham on the sideline. Instead he punted the thing away and Covey dashed down the left sideline and broke Oregon’s back with a 78-yard return for a touchdown.
What now?
That’s the question to ask. Because the Ducks are 9-2 and could still pick themselves up, win the North Division, grab the Pac-12 title and make a New Year’s Day bowl game. That work for you, Duck fan? It should. Because this season has been littered with injuries, setbacks and limitations. If we’re being real there were clues all over the place that suggested the whole playoff thing was teetering.
Exhibit A: The overtime loss to Stanford.
Exhibits B and C: Unimpressive one-score wins against Cal and UCLA.
Exhibit D: The fact that the Ducks entered the game with only three passing plays this season of 40-plus yards.
Oregon plays a rivalry game against Oregon State in a week. The Beavers not only know what they need to do, they are riding a one-game series win streak and will show up. OSU also beat Utah earlier this season. In a perfect world, Cristobal’s team regroups and decides it wants another shot at Utah in a potential Pac-12 championship game on Dec. 3. But I wonder right now how many games Oregon might have lost in Utah on Saturday night.
One? Two? Or maybe more?
Will the Ducks fall flat now that their playoff hopes are dashed? Will they go into a Ute-induced coma? We know Oregon has some talent. We already know it can bounce back after a tough loss. The Ducks did it after the Stanford setback. But we don’t know how the Oregon operation will react. It was manically focused on the playoff carrot until the second quarter on Saturday, when the thing suddenly turned into a billy club that Whittingham used to clobber UO into submission.
Saturday night ended early for the Ducks. Maybe it was evident to you watching on television that Utah had all the energy and a better plan early on. Maybe you saw Oregon run 11 plays in the first quarter to Utah’s 21 and figured the Ducks would figure some things out. They overcame a series of slow starts this season, but that second quarter was a 21-0 knockout.
That punt return was a heavyweight uppercut.
I saw Oregon beat Ohio State in Ohio Stadium this season. It was a wonderful moment for the program. I watched them extinguish the ghost of Chip Kelly. It was a nice win in Pasadena. I saw them rise to the occasion and keep their playoff chances alive. This is a program that has raised expectations to the highest levels of college football. Also one that has had some difficult setbacks.
It lost linebacker Justin Flowe to injury in Week 1.
A month later, it saw CJ Verdell’s season end.
Now the Ducks may have to play on without Verone McKinley III.
Maybe Oregon could learn from the guy who broke its heart on Saturday night. Before the punt return Covey went on a two-year mission and missed a couple of years of college. He had two season-ending injuries and took a medical redshirt. He’s been in college at Utah since 2015 and is still technically only a redshirt junior.
“I ain’t leaving until Covey leaves,” is the new campus rally cry at Utah.
That same guy caught that UO punt and started running. He drove a stake through Oregon’s heart on Saturday night. Do the Ducks want to see him again on the football field this season? If so, they have to regroup quickly.
The questions for Oregon today aren’t as much about replacing a key player or finding a way to win a close game as they are about replacing the disappointing divot Utah just put in the Oregon season.
It was a doozy.
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I agree with your thoughts here. I loved last night’s game, but I would be stunned if Oregon played like that against Utah again. They have too much talent and too good of coaching. I think the chances are better that they would be ticked after last night’s shellacking and would come out and play out of their minds. Of course, beating the Ducks twice would be fun.
The conventional wisdom is they’ll be highly motivated. I don’t doubt it.
But there was an interesting change in Cristobal last night. At the half the sideline reporter asked him about how they were going to respond, what he was going to say at the half. He gave the coachspeak answer about needing to play better, because the first half wasn’t good enough, etc.
In the 2nd half we exchanged scores & took up almost all the 3rd quarter, then early in the 4th we forced them into a punt, and Cristobal had a very different look in his eyes… like he knew they were losing their chance to get into the CPF, that it was real, and it was happening, right then.
In the same way we crapped the bed in 2019 after the CCG and looked like garbage against Texas in the bowl, Oregon fell a LONG way last night. It’s such a short period of time to the CCG, with their instate rival coming up next and then a quick turnaround to Vegas… they’re still going to be hurting, emotionally, and they’ve been dodging bullets in league.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still struggling to reconcile things in Vegas.
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My duck friends never ever let me forget about the kaelin klay blunder. Kicking to covey with 11 seconds in the half was easily comparable. Now I will always have an answer.
I realize the ducks may be a different team in two weeks, but we dominated both lines of scrimmage last night. Unless they figure out a way to stop our running game, I like our chances a lot.
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Maybe it’s just me, but I never want to play someone twice after you’ve beaten them once. Go Beavers!
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I’m with you. When I played football in ‘68-‘69 at Skyline, we lost to East that year at home. In league play both teams were tied but the league did not have a tiebreaker rule that would have made East the champion. So a rematch was set up and Skyline traveled to East for that game. We won and that sent Skyline to the state championship playoffs. I remember still how stoked I was for that rematch.
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Lost in all the excitement is that the Mens hoop team beat Boston College yesterday and will be playing Tulsa this afternoon. Sadly no TV 
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I noticed some backup DL in the game early. Just dug around and noticed Xavier Carlton didn’t play. Anyone know why?
In addition I saw DT Aliki Vimahi returned to action. I believe he sat out the Arizona game.