Ratliff tweaks ankle but will be good to go

A little drama marked Utah's first football practice in nearly a week.

Brett Ratliff, who quarterbacked the Utes past BYU last month, suffered a minor ankle sprain midway through the workout.

"It's just a little tweak. He'll be fine," said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. "He'll be out here tomorrow."

Ratliff suffered the injury to his left ankle when he was stepped on after making a cut on a play. For precautionary reasons, Ratliff didn't participate in the remainder of practice. He ran with a noticeable limp after having it examined and taped.

"It's not that big of a deal," Ratliff said. ". . . It's a little sore right now, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be out here practicing again."

Injuries are never good, he added, while expressing disappointment in not be able to run around with his teammates in the first of six practices before Christmas.

Whittingham was confident a little rest and some ice was all Ratliff's ailing ankle would need. Things, obviously, could have been much worse.

"It's the last thing we need to happen," Whittingham said. "It was just a little fluke thing. They don't expect it to be anything more than a day or two."

Ratliff, who took over the starting job when Brian Johnson was injured late in the New Mexico game, is backed up by former Timpview High and Dixie State quarterback Danny Southwick. The junior, however, has yet to appear in a game for the Utes.

"I just tweaked my ankle a little bit — nothing big," insisted Ratliff, who just wanted to take the necessary precautions to make sure it's nothing bad. He was confident about returning to practice today and being 100 percent.

After studying a good amount of film on Georgia Tech, Ratliff is also sure the Utes can be successful against the 24th-ranked Yellow Jackets in the Emerald Bowl, Dec. 29 in San Francisco.

"They're a great team. I'm looking forward to getting out there on the field and trying to pick them apart," Ratliff said. "They have some tendencies they do that we can take advantage of and I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a great game and I'm excited."

Georgia Tech, he noted, brings a lot of pressure and blitzes a lot. Ratliff expects Utah's offensive line to do a great job picking them up, allowing him time to test the secondary.

"They're a great team. They're going to be fast," Ratliff said of Yellow Jackets. "We've just got to be prepared for them."

Aside from Sunday, the Utes will practice daily through Dec. 22. They'll reunite Christmas night in San Francisco and resume bowl preparations the next morning at Laney College in Oakland.

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E-mail: dirk@desnews.com