After seven games of waiting to exhale, the Utes finally got some relief, Saturday night. They erased a question that has been hanging over their heads, week after week, month after month: What if the unthinkable happened and quarterback Terrance Cain got hurt?

They knew they had a backup. The question was whether to use freshman Jordan Wynn, or put him in cold storage until a later season.

Now that question is as moot as Al Gore's election recount.

No, Cain didn't get hurt.

But his backup is up and running.

And he may not be the backup anymore.

Stalling on offense throughout the first half, the Utes went to Wynn in the second. He responded by leading them to a 22-10 win over Wyoming at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Not an overly impressive score, but at this point, do they care?

Style points aren't their biggest concern.

Utah now has two decent options at quarterback and the Utes are better for it. Wynn's uncertain status had them driving in the dark with the lights off.

Now Coach Kyle Whittingham has some breathing room.

Utah didn't get it's insurance score until 1:41 remained in the game on a run by Eddie Wide. Otherwise, the Utes saw the end zone just once, on a 22-yard pass from Wynn to Jereme Brooks.

"We moved fairly well on offense," said Whittingham, "but we've got to get points on the board."

So what if Utah is the least convincing 7-1 team in America?

They're moving ahead -- and doing some funky things while they're at it.

Saturday marked the return of what is likely to become an annual event – the "blackout." Fans showed up in black shirts and sweatshirts by the tens of thousands. Several thousand didn't arrive at all -- presumably sidetracked because it was Halloween. Fair enough. The place did look like a mortician's convention.

That's how it must feel to Wyoming, which has now lost nine of the last 10 games to Utah. The previous two years, Utah won by a combined score of 90-7.

This time, though, the outcome was seriously in doubt. Utah trailed 10-9 midway through the fourth quarter. Wynn had started the second half and got the Utes in position to score a pair of field goals, then connected with Brooks for the go-ahead score.

"We just wanted to finish drives," said Whittingham.

That, of course, wasn't a new problem. The Utes gained just 267 yards, last week – the third time this season they got under 300 yards of total offense.

This week they were 1-for-5 on drives in the first half, with only a field goal to show for it. On one series they thrashed about, drawing a sack, a false start, another sack, and an incompletion.