Utah Utes Week 6 Preview

With Florida and Stanford losing, the Utes moved up two spots to #10. Assuming that the Harris Poll follows suit, Utah would be eligible for at-large bid.

LB JJ Williams will not play this week, and could possibly miss the season.

TE Brad Clifford is questionable for this week’s game with an arm injury.

What to expect against Iowa State
The Utes face their toughest challenge of the season, traveling to Iowa State. The Cyclones have a 3-2 record losing only to ranked opponents. In addition, Iowa State has played very well at home, beating their opponents by an average score of 35-16. What will happen in this game

The Utes win the turnover battle
After Week 4’s 56-3 domination of San Jose State, Coach Kyle Whittingham never stopped coaching. After praising the team’s play, he quickly pointed out that his team needed to force turnovers, in order to win big games. This season, Utah has a turnover ratio of -3, which would be the lowest total of during Coach Whittingham’s tenure.

The team that commits the fewest turnovers wins this game. In Iowa State’s wins this season, they were +8 in turnover margin, but -3 in games that they lost. With Utes spending the last two weeks emphasizing turnover creation, expect to the defense create a few, and win this battle.

Offense opens up the playbook
The Utes have kept their offense relatively simple over the past few weeks, because they had huge leads. However, the Iowa State defense is much better than any opponent that the Utes have played so far. Against a stronger, faster opponent, the Utes will need to open up the playbook and get more players involved. The receivers, particularly Reggie Dunn, will get more touches against the Cyclones.

Stop the run
After watching the Cyclones run for 250 yards against Texas Tech, the Utes will continue to make stopping the run their first priority. The front seven has played very well this season, limiting opponents to 2.4 yards per carry. That trend will continue this week.

Bring more pressure
In order to stop the run, and force more turnovers, the Utes will blitz more often this week. Iowa State has allowed 6 sacks in the past two weeks, something Utah will capitalize on.

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