Welcome to the Holy Score, a weekly look at Utah and Brigham Young football in which we assess their performances with no punches pulled or apologies forthcoming. If one of them stinks, we’ll tell you they stink. Most Utah and BYU fans are entirely reasonable — sarcasm alert! — but those who can’t handle the truth should read the message boards instead.
Just as everyone predicted, the road to the Big 12 championship runs through Utah.
Except the script has flipped along Interstate 15: Brigham Young is undefeated, tied atop the conference and barreling toward a possible College Football Playoff berth; Utah is two games out of first place after back-to-back losses, searching for identity and momentum.
It wasn’t supposed to play out like this.
The Cougars had a coach on the Warm Seat in Kalani Sitake and were picked 13th in the Big 12 preseason poll, partly because of uncertainty created by a quarterback competition between Jake Retzlaff and Gerry Bohanon.
The Utes were pegged to win the conference, largely because they had a veteran quarterback, Cam Rising, who was a proven winner and finally healthy after an 18-month recovery from a knee injury.
Then everything went haywire in the Beehive State when Rising was pushed into a set of water coolers on the Baylor sideline in the second game of the season.
That’s right, Utah’s trajectory changed dramatically because of a simple push — the kind of push-in-the-back by defensive players that takes place all the time when scrambling quarterbacks are seeking shelter out of bounds.
And because of something as innocuous as water coolers — the kind of water coolers that are on every team’s sideline.
Except these water coolers were a little too close to the field, and Rising’s collision with them was a little too unfortunate.
Nothing has been the same since for the Utes, but the situation feels familiar.
Brigham Young experienced a comparable plot twist 50 weeks ago when starting quarterback Keon Slovis was forced to cut his season short because of injuries.
The Cougars turned to Retzlaff, who had thrown zero career passes when he replaced Slovis for the stretch run. And his inexperience showed. Retzlaff completed only 50 percent of his passes and threw as many interceptions as touchdowns in his four starts — all losses.
He spent the offseason competing with Bohanon, won the job in training camp, kept the job despite several uneven performances in maturing into a dependable starter before their eyes.
That’s not exactly how the situation unfolded in Salt Lake City, for Rising’s late-career fate does not exactly mirror Slovis’ arc. But it’s reasonably close.
He was brilliant in the season opener — the Rising of old. Then came Baylor, the shove, the water coolers and an injury to his throwing hand that would force Rising to miss three games. (He reportedly suffered a dislocation and laceration.)
Freshman Issac Wilson, performing the stopgap role Retzlaff filled late last season for BYU, did his best to keep the offense functioning while everyone waited for Rising’s return.
The weekly guessing game that dominated Utah’s program …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
