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• Utes try to get back on track in clash with Aztecs

  
  

  Salt Lake City, UT (Sports Network) - With their six-game win streak having recently ended, the 23rd-ranked Utah Utes now turn their attention to the San Diego State Aztecs and the Mountain West Conference challenge that lies before them at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City this weekend.

  As one of the three nationally-ranked programs in the MWC at the moment, the Utes could have turned more than a few heads last weekend when they went up against highly-touted TCU in Fort Worth. Unfortunately, the outcome by no means favored Utah as the Horned Frogs ripped off a 55-28 victory and remained in the hunt for a coveted BCS bowl berth. At 8-2 overall and 5-1 in conference play, the Utes will still appear in the postseason, but to this point they haven't ruined anyone else's party.

  As for the Aztecs, they too can still make it to the postseason, but the squad has to win the final two games of the regular season and then pray that they get the call with a mere six wins. Last weekend really hurt SDSU's chances as the squad fell to Wyoming at home, 30-27. The loss was the second straight for the team and dropped it to a mere 2-4 in conference.

  Utah crushed San Diego State last season, 63-14, opening up a 15-12-1 advantage in the all-time series in the process.

  Quarterback Ryan Lindley saw his string of consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass come to a halt last week as he and his Aztecs bowed to the visiting Cowboys by a mere three points. Lindley finished the outing 18-of-29 for 200 yards, but other than that his efforts were rather uneventful. Instead, the offense turned to the running game which produced three touchdowns, two of them coming from Brandon Sullivan who gained 105 yards on 18 carries.

  "It's frustration," said Lindley following the loss at home. "You're hurting any time you lose, especially a game like this. You can woulda, shoulda, coulda all you want, but it comes down to making it happen when it goes down. They did and we didn't." From a defensive standpoint SDSU allowed not only 200 yards on the ground but also 246 yards through the air to the Cowboys, and that pretty much kept the Aztecs guessing what could be coming on every play. Tougher to swallow was giving up, not just 24 points in the fourth quarter, but the game-winning field goal in the final minutes to the Pokes.

  "Obviously, it wasn't very fun out there at the end," was the only way head coach Brady Hoke could explain the experience. "We got outwilled by a team. They played harder, they executed and that's pretty much how the game went" Even though the defense was exploited in the final 15 minutes last weekend, the truth is the unit hasn't been all that bad this season. At the moment it ranks fifth in the conference and 77th nationally with 379.6 ypg allowed. Sure, the squad is giving up an average of 30 ppg (94th), but considering TCU posted 55 points against the Aztecs just a couple weeks back, it's not all that bad.

  Lindley has been trying to keep this group above water from the very beginning and has kind of done so with his 55.5 percent completions and 21 touchdowns, although he has had 12 passes picked off too.

  "We got beat by an outstanding TCU team this weekend," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said in his weekly press conference. "We knew we were going to have to play near-flawless football to compete and we were far from that. We had a stretch the last part of the first quarter and early in the second quarter where the game really got away from us and we dug ourselves an insurmountable hole." The hole of which the coach speaks is a reference to the 28 straight points scored by the Horned Frogs over the course of the first and second quarters, giving the home team a huge edge going into the break.

  The run game for the Utes was nowhere to be found, as far as total yardage was concerned, with just 65 on 27 attempts, but at least Eddie Wide (one TD) and Shaky Smithson (two TDs) were able to get into the end zone. Jordan Wynn started yet again at quarterback, converting 16-of-32 for 219 yards and a touchdown, but he also had one pass picked off and returned 15 yards for a score early in the second frame.

  "The game was a big positive for Jordan," coach Whittingham recognized. "He handled himself very well. He hung in there and showed a great deal of toughness and resiliency and was very poised. He did a solid job given the circumstances and learned a great deal. He will be a better quarterback because of this." Obviously, when a team gives up 55 points to a single opponent after allowing no more than 17 in all but one of the previous games during the season, all of the blame can't be put on the defense for the Utes. Even now Utah's pass defense ranks 14th in the country with just 173.3 ypg allowed and the scoring defense is still giving up just 20.3 ppg, even after the mess at TCU.

  Losing Matt Asiata to injury has made this team revamp on offense, as has the change at quarterback from Terrance Cain to Wynn, so the emergence of Wide coming out of the backfield for the Utes has been huge. After 10 games he leads the program with his 834 yards and nine touchdowns and has taken some of the pressure off Wynn who is just getting his feet wet in the major college game.

  11/18 11:09:49 ET