Can Utah fix what’s ailing its run game — on offense and on defense?

Many of the same issues that were impacting Utah the last time it went into a bye week about a month ago — quarterback questions, red-zone scoring and missed tackles — continue to plague the Utes right now, during their second bye week of the 2024 season.
The spotlight, understandably, centers around what Utah will do at quarterback during the final month of the season — on Tuesday, coach Kyle Whittingham said Isaac Wilson and Brandon Rose will split reps at quarterback.
“We’re gonna evaluate this week. There’s two guys in the running obviously,” Whittingham said.
For a Utah fanbase that’s grown weary over the past two seasons with QB issues — brought on initially because of injuries — that topic is taking the lion’s share of debate around a team that is 4-4 and on a four-game losing streak heading into November.
One of the underlying issues, in addition to all the quarterback talk, is the Utes’ running-game struggles — both on offense and defense.
The Utes traditionally have been a strong rushing team under Whittingham and are stout defensively against the ground attack.
In the first four games of the season, that proved to be the case, as Utah outrushed its opposition in all four wins.
A look at those numbers:
The most impressive of those efforts came in the win over Oklahoma State — that day, Utah running back Micah Bernard ran for a career-best 182 yards on 25 carries.
The Utes defense, meanwhile, held last year’s Doak Walker winner, Ollie Gordon II, to 42 rushing yards, his second-lowest rushing total of the season.
While Gordon hasn’t put up the kind of numbers that was expected going into the season, the game still represents the Utes’ top performance in terms of rushing offense and defense.
It’s also fair at this time to point out that outlooks and expectations have changed drastically since the Utes lost starting quarterback Cam Rising to injury — first when he was hurt midway through the Baylor game in Week 2, then for the season after a hobbled Rising struggled mightily against Arizona State in the team’s sixth game.
During each game of the Utes’ four-game losing streak, though, Utah has been outgained on the ground, and that resulted in the worst effort of the year last Saturday in a 17-14 loss to Houston.
A look at Utah’s rushing efforts in the last four games:
Bernard, who’s been the Utes’ No. 1 back by a wide margin this season, ran for 51 yards against Houston, his lowest total since the season opener when he had only five carries go for 33 yards.
While some of these running-game struggles can be chalked up to opposing defenses stacking the box and daring quarterbacks like Wilson, the true freshman, and an inexperienced Rose to beat them through the air, the running game’s struggles in recent weeks haven’t helped take pressure off the passing game.
Against Houston, Utah’s defense kept the Utes in the game with two goal-line stands that turned away two promising Cougar sporing opportunities.
The Utes, though, were more susceptible to giving up rushing yards to Houston, and in the fourth quarter, the Cougars relied on their rushing attack to rally and win.
Houston went into the final quarter trailing 14-7, but they ran the ball on 18 plays in the fourth and only threw the ball three times while scoring twice.
The first scoring drive was an 85-yard possession and was fueled by the run game before a 28-yard touchdown pass. The second scoring drive — set up by a Rose interception with 1:55 to play — included eight straight runs before Houston kicked a 43-yard game-winning field goal as time expired.
When asked to pinpoint the team’s struggles, Whittingham mentioned the run game first and foremost.
“In this past game, we didn’t run the ball well enough. We didn’t defend the run well enough,” he said Tuesday.
He also added, “We lost the turnover margin again, which has been a theme for this year, left some points out there by missing a couple field goals. It was a combination of four or five things that we didn’t do as well as we could have.”
There are a couple factors that could contribute to some changes, at least offensively, for Utah during its bye week before the Utes host unbeaten and No. 9 BYU on Nov. 9.
The Houston game was the first under interim offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian, who took over the mantle of the Utah offense after Andy Ludwig stepped down following the TCU loss.
“It gives him a little bit of time to prepare,” Whittingham said of the bye week, and how it could help Bajakian get more up to speed.
“You know, last week was such a crunch that there was not a lot of opportunity to tweak things or put much of his stamp on it. But with the bye week, he has a little opportunity to do that.”
While Bernard has been the team’s primary ball carrier much of the season, Jaylen Glover received his first carries since Week 1 in the loss to Houston. Against the Cougars, he had four carries for 33 yards, including a 22-yarder.
Could Glover, Mike Mitchell — who’s seen his carries decrease in recent weeks — or someone like Dijon Stanley be used more in the Utah ground attack in the team’s final four games to help spell Bernard?
“Jaylen played very well. He made the most of his carries,” Whittingham said. “He didn’t get a ton of carries, but the carries that he did get, he maximized, and he had a really good practice today, too.”
The Utes may need to lean more on the rushing attack, given the quarterback issues and a receiving group that just lost Money Parks to a season-ending injury.
For the defense, some of the running-game woes could be aided if the Utes can get a bit healthier.
While linebacker Karene Reid has been back for two weeks and Utah got defensive end Connor O’Toole back on the field against Houston, the interior of the defensive line has been beset by injuries.
Against Houston, tackles Junior Tafuna and Keanu Tanuvasa both missed the game.
Missed tackles, too, have been a particular issue for much of the season, dating back to the Utes’ first loss against Arizona, right before the first bye of the season.
Will the Utes be able to remedy some of those defensive lapses during the bye week?
“Just not good enough. Shouldn’t have allowed 17 points to start off with, so we got to be better. We got to be better,” Reid said after the Houston loss.