Week 8 of the college football season is here and despite there not being a ranked match up this weekend in the Big 12, there is still plenty on the line with conference play in full swing. One of the games that flew under the radar was in Salt Lake City, Utah as the Utah Utes hosted the TCU Horned Frogs.
TCU was coming off a bye week while Utah lost to Arizona State on the road last Friday. Both teams are in desperate need of a win and in the end, TCU came out on top 13-7. Here are my top three takeaways from the game.
Josh Hoover Took Care of the Football
As talented as Josh Hoover is, the one thing that has been holding him back is turnovers. Prior to the game against Utah, Hoover threw six interceptions in his last three games. Plus, he had a few fumbles as well.
On Saturday, Josh didn’t have his best day throwing the football but the most important thing he did was not turning the football over. Utah has one of the best defenses in the conference and the fact that he didn’t give them anything was huge. All Josh needed to do is manage the offense and take care of the football and that is exactly what he did and that is why TCU won the game along with their outstanding defense.
Isaac Wilson Isn’t the Answer at Quarterback
With Cam Rising out for the season, Utah has officially turned to Isaac Wilson to be the starting quarterback. Wilson had started a few games this season when Cam was out, and he struggled to take care of the football and find his receivers. Well, it was pretty much the same story on Saturday night against TCU.
Wilson went 17/33 and had one touchdown along with one interception against the Horned Frogs. While he did make a couple plays with his legs, he had trouble keeping the offense on the field. The Utes went just 2/15 on third down and couldn’t convert on their two fourth down attempts. It doesn’t help when the run game is nonexistent because it puts more pressure on the young quarterback, but he’s got to find some consistency out there if Utah is going to win games.
Utah’s Big 12 Title Hopes Are Done
I never thought in a million years that I would be saying that Utah is completely out of the Big 12 title picture by mid-October but here we are. The Utes were the popular pick to win the Big 12 back in the preseason and it was hard to argue against that when you saw what they were bringing back Unfortunately for the Utes, the injury bug struck again with their quarterback Cam Rising who missed nearly a month of action before returning against Arizona State last week.
It was clear that he wasn’t fully healthy in that game, and his season ended earlier this week. With Cam being hurt, Utah’s offense struggled and now they have lost three conference games in a row. I know the Big 12 is the craziest conference in college football and that anything could happen, but it looks like Utah’s Big 12 title hopes are officially over.
