SALT LAKE CITY — Quarterback Troy Williams ran for two touchdowns and threw another, helping No. 24 Utah come back to beat Arizona 36-23 in their college football game Saturday night.
Utah (5-1, 2-1) trailed 14-12 at halftime after committing 11 first-half penalties, including all those false starts. Arizona (2-4, 0-3) scored on the first snap of the game when Brandon Dawkins connected with Shun Brown for a 75-yard TD pass, taking advantage of blown coverage that left Brown completely uncovered.
The Utes scored 26 straight points after falling behind 14-3. Williams got both of his running TDs in the second half and had 245 yards passing for the game. Armand Shyne also ran for a TD in the third quarter, while the defense tightened up and forced two second-half turnovers and allowed just nine points. Shyne finished with 101 yards on 19 carries.
The Utes moved into a tie atop the Pac-12 South with Colorado. They ended a four-game losing streak to Arizona. After beating Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham has defeated every active Pac-12 coach since joining the conference in 2011. Whittingham also got his 100th career victory.
Washington State shines
In Stanford, after opening the season with losses to lower-division Eastern Washington and Boise State, Washington State has staged a dramatic turnaround and is now overwhelming the Pac-12’s recent powerhouses.
The Cougars followed a lopsided win over Oregon that was fueled by a dominant running attack with a thorough beating of No. 15 Stanford led by the play in the trenches.
Luke Falk threw for 357 yards and four touchdowns and the defensive line shut down Christian McCaffrey and the Cardinal offense in a 42-16 victory Saturday.
“We had to realize there’s no good finesse teams in football,” receiver Gabe Marks said. “Even the teams you guys like to call finesse teams, they really aren’t. ... We had to come back to basics and just grind it out.”
The Cougars (3-2, 2-0) held the Cardinal (3-2, 2-2) to 296 yards of offense and didn’t allow an offensive score until the final play of the game. The offensive line managed to protect Falk well enough to allow him to find his receivers downfield.
Falk connected with Tavares Martin Jr. twice in the first half and added second-half TD passes to Marks and River Cracraft to help the Cougars follow up last week’s 51-33 win over Oregon by ending an eight-game losing streak to Stanford. The Ducks and Cardinal have combined to win the past seven conference titles.
That streak is in serious jeopardy this year as the Cardinal got blown out for the second straight game, losing in back-to-back weeks for the first time in six seasons under coach David Shaw. Stanford lost 44-6 at Washington last week. The Ducks are 0-3 in conference play.
Making matters worse for the Cardinal was the fact that last year’s Heisman runner-up McCaffrey went to the locker room in the second half with an injury and didn’t return to the game. McCaffrey came back to the sideline and had his helmet on, but didn’t re-enter the game.
“There was no reason to put him in late in the game,” Shaw said. “We just left him out. We’ll see how he is during the course of the week.”
