Up and down on the hill: Utes are at a crossroads with 0-4 USU on the horizon

Over the past two weeks, Utah football has experienced the full spectrum of emotion: going from the high of beating a nationally ranked UCLA team (44-6) to the low of losing to unheralded UNLV (27-0).

With apologies to crooner James Taylor, the Utes have seen fire and they've seen rain. They've seen sunny days that they thought would never end. They've seen lonely times when they could not find a friend.

At 1-3 overall and 0-2 in Mountain West Conference play, Utah enters Saturday's homecoming game with Utah State looking for answers.

"You never want to point fingers. We certainly have to get more offensive production. You're going to win zero games scoring zero points. That's obvious. It's painfully obvious and so that's a concern," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "Defensively, we've got to tackle better. My mind-set, always as a defensive coordinator, was if the offense doesn't score, let's score on defense. You never sit there and say 'OK, we did our part.'

"That's a loser's mentality and a loser's attitude," he added.

As far as the Utes are concerned, they're all in this together.

"Everyone in this building has got a job to do and that is to make this football team as good as we can possibly make it," Whittingham said. "I thought we had that headed in the right direction eight, nine days ago. Now I feel like we're back to square one."

The Utes are at a crossroads of sorts. In the midst of a season filled with twists and turns, they're desperate for consistency.

Whittingham readily admits there is little or no margin for error — even though a massive amount of injuries (including seven starters) has plagued the program.

"You've got to keep playing regardless of what circumstances you're under. You've got to keep playing," Whittingham said. "That's life. Football is a microcosm of life. So if you go through life and a couple of bad things happen, do you shut it down and just quit?

"That's not how I operate. That's why I expect the football team to operate the same way."

Utah is moving on, determined to turn things around.

"We have just as much talent in this building as we've had any other year here, if not more," quarterback Brian Johnson said. "The bottom line is finding a way to come out with the same edge, the same mental preparation, same physical preparation and dominate games like we used to."