Five things you might not know about Utah, which will be Ohio State’s opponent in the Rose Bowl on Saturday:
• Utah coach Kyle Whittingham is the Kirk Ferentz of the Pac 12. He found a place he likes and he has stayed, the same way Ferentz has done at Iowa.
Whittingham has been Utah’s head coach since 2004. He was the Utes’ defensive coordinator from 1994-2003. His last two years as defensive coordinator were when Urban Meyer was Utah’s head coach.
• Utah is the largest public university in that state but not the largest university. Its enrollment ranks second to Brigham Young University. BYU and New York University are the only two instances of a private university being the largest in a state, according to Business Insider magazine.
• Utah claims a streak of 70 consecutive sellouts at home games in its Rice-Eccles Stadium (capacity 51,444) dating back to its opener in 2010.
• Utah’s 1,000-yard running back Tavion Thomas has already played in a game against Ohio State. He began his college career at the University of Cincinnati and rushed for 58 yards on 11 carries when OSU beat the Bearcats 42-0 in 2019.
• Utah has a contract with the Ute Indian tribe which permits it to use the Utes nickname. That contract was renewed and updated for five years in 2020. It includes a scholarship program for tribe members and support for K-12 education on a Ute Indian reservation in northeastern Utah.
Unlike last season when Ohio State had a history with its postseason opponents, Clemson and Alabama, there is not much historical evidence to examine about Utah and OSU.
No. 6 Ohio State (10-2) and No. 11 Utah (10-3) have played only once – a 64-6 OSU win in 1986 on a day when the Buckeyes rolled up 715 yards of total offense.
Utah is thrilled to be in the Rose Bowl for the first time. The Utes’ players and coaches see it as an opportunity to make a statement. And their fans are excited, too. Utah sold 2 ½ times as many tickets to the game as Ohio State, which sold 13,000 and returned 7,000 unsold tickets to the Rose Bowl.
Ohio State, understandably, is less excited. The Rose Bowl might have been the biggest prize for OSU when Otis Redding was on the radio and Jim Otis was carrying the football, but not now. Since 2014, any bowl trip that isn’t part of the College Football Playoff is a disappointment for the Buckeyes.
That does not mean Ohio State will just be going through the motions. And even without the four players who chose not to play in the Rose Bowl, the Buckeyes will put more 4-star and 5-star players on the field than Utah.
The Utes’ highest ranked recruiting class in the last five years was No. 30 nationally. Four of OSU’s last five recruiting classes have been in the top five nationally.
Ohio State will be without wide receivers Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, left tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere and defensive tackle Haskell Garrett, who chose protecting their futures in the NFL over the Rose Bowl.
That could level the playing field a bit. But possibly the biggest danger for OSU is that Utah is just a bad match-up. Some of the things it is good at are the things Ohio State has been bad at containing.
Maybe the most notable of those bad match-ups is that Utah is good at running the ball and OSU has struggled most of the season against good running attacks.
Utah, which ranks No. 11 nationally in rushing yards per game, is the third team Ohio State has faced this season which ranks in the top 25 nationally in that category. The other two were Michigan and Oregon, the two teams which beat OSU while rushing for 297 yards and 270 yards.
Utah’s 38-7 regular-season win over Oregon and its 38-10 win over the Ducks in the Pac-12 championship game certainly has gotten Ohio State’s attention.
The path to an Ohio State victory probably looks something like this: Rely on the offense, which hopefully will remain solid even without Olave, Wilson and Petit-Frere. Rely on the offense because the defense has had 12 games to fix its problems and hasn’t fixed them yet.
Scoring early and often and building a big lead to make Utah’s running game less important, similar to the 56-7 win over Michigan State, would be helpful, too.
The prediction: Ohio State 35, Utah 28.
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