As Utah prepares for the Rose Bowl, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley sees a much-improved defense. Since giving up 42 to UCLA and USC in back-to-back games, Utah has yet to allow more than 24 points in a game.

It hasn’t been the same kind of defensive season Utah has come to expect, but Scalley has seen his group come a long way.

“Yeah, at the beginning of the season, you had Lander Barton (as) a true freshman, Mohamoud Diabate getting his feet wet in our defense, some miscues early,” Scalley told reporters this week. “But this is a fun group to coach, and they take to coaching. They take to hard coaching. Every week they’ve come ready to prepare.

“I thought they got better every single week, and usually that happens when you have leadership and guys buy into the process and understand, okay, the film is going to show you everything; don’t listen to the outside noise, the film will show you everything you need to know about what we need to correct, what we need to fix, and they’ve done that, and I’m proud of them.”

That buy-in is important. Scalley highlighted corner Clark Phillips III — whom the Utes will be without in the Rose Bowl — as a guy who really helped that along, saying that he’d take a million Clark Phillips and that he’s grateful for what the NFL-bound corner has brought to the team.

No hard feelings over a draft declaration. The defense feels confident.

“You saw early on a bunch of guys just trying to do their 1/11th and trying to get their job done instead of playing together as a complete defense, and you see that a little bit in the celebration now,” Scalley said. “They all celebrate together, and they’re having fun together. They’re buying into each other, understanding that, okay, not only am I understanding my 1/11th, but what that 11th does for the other guy.

“If you come watch practice, it’s fun. They’re having fun. It’s a group that if you don’t have that camaraderie, it makes it really difficult in this defense, so proud of them.”

The R.S.N.B. culture is something the Utes’ defense take pride in. Relentless, smart, nasty, ballhawks.

“It’s something that we established I think my second year as a defensive coordinator, but it really ties into Coach (Kyle) Whittingham’s team-like culture. Culture is everything in my opinion, and if you don’t create it, it’s going to create itself. Sometimes a lot of the time it’s not what you want.

The Utes gave up 48 points in a loss to Ohio State in this game last season. They’ll look for redemption on Saturday (2 p.m. PT, ESPN).