Halloween Saturday brings the kind of test that can flip a perfect season in a hurry, and No. 6 Utah is walking straight into it.
The Utes are 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the Big 12, but their trip to Cincinnati feels like the sort of road game that can spoil everything. Utah faces the Bearcats, not BYU, and that distinction matters only because the Holy War is still waiting on Nov.
- It’s easy to see that rivalry looming in the background for a Utah team trying to stay focused on the task in front of it.
That task gets uglier at Nippert Stadium. The venue has already shown what kind of trouble it can cause, with then-No.
8 Texas Tech getting knocked around in a 37-24 loss there last Saturday. Cole Tabb put it plainly before that game when he said, "Being able to play 'Nipp at noon' in front of that rowdy crowd, if you're a competitor, you want to play against the best,"
This one won’t kick off at noon - it’s a 3:45 p.m. ET start - but the setting should still be hostile.
Nippert only holds 38,088, yet it can get loud fast, and Halloween only adds another layer to the noise. A quick Cincinnati turnover, a few student chants of "overrated!", and Utah could find itself wrestling with the crowd as much as the Bearcats.
That kind of atmosphere tends to snowball. False starts, blown assignments, miscommunication - those are the little cracks that can show up when a road favorite starts feeling the pressure.
Scott Satterfield clearly wants the building to be part of the plan. "I think for us, we need to show how much of an environment we have here," Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
" I know it's Halloween, but dress up and come out yelling in this game. We're going to need to have that home field advantage because it certainly helped us last week, and we know when we play here it's different for us because of that.
Hopefully, our fans will show up and be loud."
On the field, the most important battle may be Utah’s defense against Cincinnati’s passing game. The Utes bring the nation’s longest active winning streak at 13, but their secondary has looked vulnerable at times in the last two games, both narrow wins over Colorado and Houston. Utah’s pass defense ranks 91st nationally, so Cincinnati has a path if quarterback JC French IV can make plays through the air.
French threw four touchdown passes against Texas, though he also had two interceptions on 30 attempts. Utah should be able to make him uncomfortable with pressure and tighter coverage from the safeties and corners.
The ground game complicates things. Cincinnati ranks eighth in the nation in rushing offense at 234.6 yards per game, with Tabb leading the charge. The Stanford transfer ran for 173 yards and two touchdowns against Texas Tech.
But Utah’s defense presents a different kind of problem. It gives up just 88.6 rushing yards per game, eighth-fewest in the country, so that part of the matchup looks like a draw.
Which leaves Cincinnati needing to lean on the pass, and that’s where Utah can turn the screws. The Bearcats are not likely to light up the scoreboard the way Texas Tech did, especially against a defense allowing only 14.57 points per game, ninth best in the nation.
This has the feel of a tight one, but it also has the feel of the week Utah’s unbeaten run ends.
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