Utah Utes football: Team making plenty of progress, turn focus toward season-opening opponent Pittsburgh

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's second scrimmage proved to be a milestone of sorts.

After the 75-snap situational gathering at Rice-Eccles Stadium, head coach Kyle Whittingham announced a shift in focus.

"Tomorrow all our attention turns to Pitt," he said while adding that scout teams will be formed, the depth chart solidified and the projected travel squad tuned up.

"Shoot, we are what, 16 days out?" Whittingham said in referencing the Sept. 2 season-opener against Pittsburgh. "It's starting to get close."

The Utes are gearing up for it. They're also making progress.

"It was a better work day than we had yesterday, for certain," Whittingham said. "We've still got a lot to clean up — a few very untimely penalties and some turnovers we've got to eliminate — but it was great effort and we cut down on the mental mistakes. So it was a good work day."

An improvement, he added, from the first scrimmage last week.

"We definitely made progress," Whittingham acknowledged while praising the defense for creating takeaways and tackling better. "(It was) just cleaner overall."

The players agreed.

"It was good. The young guys flew around. They knew their assignments 10 times better this time," said cornerback Brandon Burton. "They made more plays and more stops."

Safety Greg Bird highlighted the defensive effort by returning a fumble 21 yards for a touchdown.

Linebacker Chad Manis also had a fumble recovery as several other players on defense made contributions. Left end Christian Cox and linebacker Tyson Buck forced the fumbles, while lineman Trevor Reilly was credited with a sack. Five players contributed to tackles-for-loss and three had pass breakups.

In the first scrimmage, the defense missed 18 tackles and was outshined by the offense.

This time was different.

"We have some young guys doing things right and flying around," Burton said.

Even so, the Utes are far from satisfied.

"It's getting close to the season and what it comes down to is people have to know what they're doing out there now," Burton explained. "We have no room for error, especially against a team like Pitt. So they're starting to get their stuff down. It was really good out there today."

Burton noted that Saturday's final scrimmage, which will feature a lot of Pitt formations and such, needs to include continued growth by the defense.

"We have to see more guys concentrating on what they do and not try to do everybody else's job at the same time," he said. "You've got to start trusting your teammates a little bit more. Today it showed a little bit, but we've got to pick it up for the next scrimmage also."

Quarterback Jordan Wynn also sees room for improvement.

"I thought we did some good things," he said. "But I think we need to execute a lot better."