Utes look ahead to Pokes after blowing away Cyclones

The 10th-ranked Utah Utes (5-0, 2-0 MWC) demolished the Iowa State Cyclones (3-3, 1-1 Big 12) last Saturday night in Ames, Iowa, winning by a score of 68-27. The Utes looked like the superior team in all phases of the game and after trailing following the first quarter really put their foot to the gas pedal and never looked back. Jordan Wynn looked solid in his first road start of the year and well the offense as a whole looked good. Shaky Smithson had a nifty long punt return as well as a touchdown pass on a trick play. He was doing everything for the Utes and looks like a really good player. In fact he had more yards than the entire Iowa State team in the first half.

The Utes, who somehow dropped a spot in the AP Poll and are now ranked 11th, next visit the Wyoming Cowboys (2-4, 0-2 MWC) tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. The game will be televised on the Mtn. As long as the Utes don't look past this game it really shouldn't be much of a challenge. The Pokes have not looked very good this year and really looked bad in getting blown out 51-6 on their home field by third-ranked Boise State (5-0, 1-0 WAC) on their home field earlier this year. The Utes shouldn't be in much trouble on this one.

I'll be following the game and have some tweets during it (follow me at twitter.com/dpaysports) but my main focus tomorrow will be on Game 1 of the NLCS between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies (see immediately below for previews of both LCS) that starts at 5:57 p.m. MT on FOX. My hope is that the Utes will have a big enough lead to where I won't feel too guilty about changing the channel and checking out the Giants. I'll be featuring tweets of the baseball game too. I will also be blogging about both games after the fact.

Utes handle Rebels to open MWC play

The 20th ranked Utah Utes (2-0, 1-0 MWC) defeated the UNLV Rebels (0-2, 0-1 MWC) 38-10 on Saturday afternoon in Salt Lake City. Terrance Cain started at quarterback in place of sophomore Jordan Wynn, who was nursing an injured thumb. Cain looked pretty good and seemed better than last year. He didn't make any major mistakes or turn the ball over plus he looked pretty accurate on most of his passes. I remember in the game at Oregon last year Cain went basically two quarters without completing a pass and had a substantial streak of incompletions. Such was not the case on Saturday as Cain looked better. He even threw the deep ball accurately, notably on a 55 yard touchdown pass to Shaky Smithson in the third quarter.

Speaking of Smithson, he had a huge game. Not only did he have that long TD reception but he also had a 70ish yard dazzling punt return for a score that was just awesome. He put on some great moves and looked really solid. It really was a redemption type game since he had fumbled twice the previous week against Pittsburgh.

I thought one of the key plays in the game was right before halftime with the Utes leading 10-3 and punting inside of one minute to go. UNLV fumbled on the punt return and Utah recovered around the 20 yard line. On the first play following the recovery by Eddie Wide, Cain threw a perfect touchdown pass and the Utes led 17-3 at the break. I think Utah already had some momentum heading into the locker room but that really ratcheted it up a notch.

Although the game was tied at 3 at the end of the first quarter it never really seemed like Utah was in significant danger of losing the game. Once the Utes were ahead by 14 at halftime it felt like the Rebels didn't have much of a chance. The only concerning matter was that Utah had a punt blocked for the second straight week, this one returned for UNLV's only touchdown of the day. Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said it was his top priority to straighten that out and I hope it gets taken care of. If punts keep getting blocked eventually it will catch up to the Utes.

All in all I thought the Utes looked quite impressive on Saturday afternoon; it was a great way to open up their final season in the Mountain West Conference -- hopefully a conference championship year. It was a lot of fun to be there and I felt that Utah took care of business the way they should have. The Utes have moved up to 14th in both major polls this week. Hopefully Wynn isn't on the shelf for too long, but I'm confident in Cain to fill in in the interim. The Utes face their first road test this Saturday night at 6 p.m. MT against the New Mexico Lobos. I'll have a preview of that one before then; my apologies for the tardiness of this blog.