Utah rolled on Saturday.

The 13th-ranked Utes won their ninth straight game inside Rice-Eccles Stadium by drubbing Southern Utah, 73-7. The offensive performance the Utes put forth was like few we’ve seen in the program’s history. The win also moved Utah to 16-2 in home openers under coach Kyle Whittingham.

Quarterback Cameron Rising finished with 254 yards and three touchdowns on 17-of-23 passing. Tight end Dalton Kincaid had seven catches for 107 yards and two scores. Brant Kuithe caught his second touchdown of the year. Tailbacks Tavion Thomas and Jaylon Glover each scored a pair of rushing touchdowns. The defense limited the Thunderbirds to just 85 total yards.

Whittingham and Rising both met with the media after the game to break things down. Here’s everything they said:

Whittingham’s opening statement

“We did a lot of good things, and we expected to win the football game, and that is a given, but you don’t always do what you are supposed to, and things don’t always go the way they are supposed to. It was good to see our guys perform efficiently and make a lot of play on both sides of the ball. We have some special teams miscues that we have to get fixed. We have things to correct; there is no doubt about that. A game like this is as valuable for our twos as it is for our ones. We got a great evaluation on our twos as they played the entire second half. We will get a good evaluation of those guys and go from there. There was a lot of good stuff to come out of this game. Besides five minutes in the first quarter where we bogged down a little bit, it was all clean, efficient, and good stuff. This was a good game to get behind us and prepare for the next one. We have San Diego State coming to town, who got us last year; we need to prepare and be ready.”

Whittingham on the first quarter

“It wasn’t all sloppy in the quarter as we got out to an early lead, but we turned the ball over during that stretch, which is a negative, but we weren’t in sync for a few minutes there but were able to get back in sync and see the offense execute those two two-minute drills at the end of the first half. I don’t have a good answer on why we bogged down, but it was only five minutes out of 60, so the other 55 minutes were pretty good.”

Whittingham on standout players in the game

“Cameron Rising and Dalton Kincaid did a nice job as they connected for seven passes. The offensive line played well. The defensive line played well, as they were much better against the run, but you would expect that. We knew this week we would be better against the run. Are we good enough? We will find out as we go along throughout the remainder of the season.”

Whittingham on the red zone performance

“I haven’t analyzed it completely yet, but statistically, it appeared to be better. If I remember correctly, we only got stopped once down there, but it was more efficient and more what we are used to.

Whittingham on Jaylon Glover

“He is a talented kid. Right now, he is our fourth back, but we are blessed with that position as we have a good room in the running backs. In his debut, he didn’t get any snaps last week and made the most of the snaps he got this week. He ended with 53 yards rushing. Jaylon is a guy we have a lot of belief in. Chris Curry and Tavion Thomas are ahead of him, but his time will come.”

Whittingham on defensive takeaways

“The run defense was a 180 from last week, but the level of competition is different, so you can’t put all your stock into numbers. You have to go watch the film see how we did with fundamentals, technique, and our fits, and make sure we are doing that stuff right. Things can become masked in a win if you don’t analyze the film.”

*****

Rising on the team’s mindset

“We wanted to come out and dominate, pretty much just do everything we can. We’ve been putting in the work and we understood that they’re a good team. We just needed to make sure we were handling our business.”

Rising on the play after the first quarter

“We just kept shooting ourselves in the foot and putting our weight behind the sticks and that made it hard for us, but we just didn’t flinch and made sure we made the next series count and that’s the most important thing right there for us.”

Rising on Chris Curry

“He’s a great back and it’s always good when you get a guy like him going. To see him running downhill and hitting those holes hard like that, although he probably shouldn’t be reaching the ball across like that for that touchdown (laughing), but it was a great run. I’m excited for him and happy to have him with the team working like that.”

Rising on all the offensive players who got involved in the win

“It gives the whole entire group confidence and going forward, just knowing we have so many guys that are so versatile that can be used in so many different situations. It’s just exciting for the offense as a whole.”