Utah football notebook: Whittingham is once-in-century coach

Utah's 22-10 win over Wyoming put Kyle Whittingham in select company. He became the school's first head football coach since Joseph H. Maddock (1904-08) to open his career with five or more consecutive winning seasons.

"I never know these things until you guys tell me," Whittingham told reporters at his postgame press conference. "So you enlightened me. I appreciate that."

Whittingham credits his success to having good players and assistant coaches who recruit well.

Since replacing Urban Meyer in 2005, Whittingham has guided the Utes to records of 7-5, 8-5, 9-4, 13-0 and 7-1 in the current campaign with four contests and a bowl game left to play.

Ike Armstrong, whose Utah career began with 18 straight non-losing seasons from 1925-42, almost reached the milestone. However, in his third season at the helm, his team went 3-3-1.

RECORD-TYING RUN: Utah running back Eddie Wide tied a school record with his fifth-consecutive 100-yard game. He joins Carl Monroe (1982), Mike Anderson (1998) and Darrell Mack (2007) in reaching the standard.

"It's really exciting. The O-line and the receivers did a great job of blocking for me," Wide said. "I'm really grateful for that."

Wide topped the mark with a 28-yard run in the third quarter. He wound up with 135 yards on 24 carries.

STREAK SNAPPED: Utah's bid for a 10th-consecutive sellout at Rice-Eccles Stadium fell short. Saturday's Halloween "Blackout" crowd of 44,837 was just 180 shy of capacity.

WHAT WAS HE THINKING?: Coach Kyle Whittingham's decision on his team's two conversions after touchdowns left a lot of folks scratching their heads.

It seemed smart to go for two up 15-10 with just 7:35 left and have the chance to be up 17-10. Instead, the Utes kicked the extra point and took a 16-10 lead, which left open the possibility the Cowboys could win with a touchdown and PAT kick, rather than tie.

Then after the Utes went up 22-10 with 1:41 left, he decided to go for two when it really didn't matter and the play failed.

So what was he thinking?

"That could have gone either way," he said. "There's two schools of thought there. There were still a couple of possessions left for each team If you miss and it's 15-10, a couple of field goals beat you. We thought about going for two, but I changed my mind and went for one. There's an argument I should have gone for two."

He never really explained the second one, saying, "it was academic."