Transcript:

Brooke Hale: Hi and welcome back to the Home Stretch, The Daily Utah’s Chronicle sports podcast. My name is Brooke Hale, and I’ll be your host today. Today, Christian Stringer will be joining us and be giving a run through on the football season so far. Hi Christian and welcome to the podcast. 

Christian Stringer: Hey Brooke, thanks for having me on.

Brooke Hale: Of course. So just to kind of start us off, what were your thoughts of the first game of the season against SUU? 

Christian Stringer: Yeah so our home opener: Southern Utah. We kick it off to a great start. Offense and defense both looked fantastic. If you were at the game, you got to hear “Bad Moon Rising” play, which sounds great after taking a year off. Cam Rising in his return was phenomenal, only played the first half, but still threw for five touchdowns. Three of them were to Brant Kuithe, so it’s great to see that they have that connection back. They picked up right where they left off. We had a couple other big plays. A player really worth mentioning is Dijon Stanley, our new speedster. He caught two touchdowns, both of them coming off long wheel routes. So it looks like our OC is going to have some more fun with the play calling this season. Defense was phenomenal as usual. We held them to a shutout. Doesn’t matter who you play. If you don’t allow a single point, it’s most the time going to be a good game. So that second half, we got to see our depth, kind of show a little bit more. Freshman quarterback Isaac Wilson came in for the second half — younger brother of former BYU quarterback Zack Wilson. But we don’t have to talk about that. He showed some promise. Granted, he’s 18 years old, true freshman … can’t be a easy situation that he’s coming into. But he did throw two interceptions, but he still has some room for improvement. We had a split backfield that game. Ten guys got some carries, showed a lot of depth, like I said. Freshman Mike Mitchell was probably the best standout in that room. He scored in his first career game, which is always great. And I just kind of like the way he runs. He runs angry, like he’s mad at the ground. So I definitely think he’s gonna be a staple of this offense. And then the last thing I’d say is worth mentioning is Isaac Wilson did throw a touchdown to a backup tight end, [who’s also a rookie], Caleb Lohner. So it looks like they might have some chemistry there. That might be something to look forward to in the future.

Brooke Hale: Absolutely, so great to hear that the Utes got a win on the SUU game, but moving into the Baylor game a bit bigger competition … what are your thoughts on that game? 

Christian Stringer: Yeah, so we came to a really hot start 17-0 first quarter lead, Cam was looking great as usual. Connected with Money Parks early in the first quarter. Money Parks has really been separating himself, him and Dorian Singer going to have that battle for wide receiver one right now. But in my opinion, I think I’m going to give the edge to Money. Micah Bernard was fantastic. He rushed 19 times for over 100 yards, and had a perceiving touchdown that game — which is good to see him being incorporated into the pass, catch and roll. Aforementioned freshman, Mike Mitchell, continued to get some short yard work. It’s a little bit less of a committee now, with Bernard leading in carries by a wide margin. That was bound to happen when we played a tough opponent like Baylor. Kuithe had a little bit of a quiet game, but I don’t think we needed too much out of him, so I wouldn’t be worried about that. And then the bad news is we did get an injury scare with Cam Rising. Nothing we’re not used to: he gets banged up from time to time. This play was a little weird one, potentially should have been a flag on a late hit. Kind of got thrown down out of bounds, injuring his throwing hand. Some rumors circulated whether it was a external cut or something that needed X-rays. All we know is that he reappeared later on with tape around his two middle fingers, but Coach Witt said it’s nothing serious, and that he should be ready to go for this upcoming Oklahoma State game where we’re really going to need him. With that injury being said, we got another look at freshman Isaac Wilson. Much more formidable team he had to play against this time. And our offense did struggle a little bit, you know, we still got away with the win, which is what important. But it does really seem like Cam is our team’s identity. You can definitely notice a difference in how we play when he’s on versus off the field, and I mean on both sides of the ball. Then, the play of the game by far that I have to mention would be our special teams unit. We blocked the field goal and safety Tao Johnson returned it for a touchdown. Something like that is always going to just give the team a huge morale boost, and I really think we needed that. But I do want to shout out our defense as well. We held a Big 12 team like Baylor, who’s known for having a pretty solid offense, to 12 points throughout the entire game. So some good takeaways from that one.

Brooke Hale: Absolutely, so: Cam Rising out for Utah State game, Isaac Wilson had to step in against Utah State this last weekend. What are your thoughts on the game? How he played?

Christian Stringer: Yeah. So the first thing I want to address is the fact that Cam didn’t play. I don’t think it was because he couldn’t, I more so think it was just a precautionary sit. I think everybody knew we didn’t exactly need him against Utah State. There might be a rivalry, but they’re just not on the same level as we are. So yeah, as you said, we did get to see Isaac Wilson in his first official start, and this was by far his best game. He threw three touchdowns in this game, one of Money Parks, who continues to be a star on this offense. One to Caleb Lohner, again, who I’m really hoping they’re going to have a connection because that would be of something really good for our future. And then one to Carsen Ryan, another backup tight end. Micah Bernard kind of had to put the team on his back a little bit. I’d say he was the engine of our offense. We gave him the ball 17 times, got over 120 yards in a touchdown. I mean, averaging 7.3 yards per carry is phenomenal. And he is really becoming our workhorse running back. Freshman Mike Mitchell, who I’ve said a lot this podcast, I really like what I’m seeing from him. Got a lot of work this game. He got 14 carries for 75 yards, so just another efficient running back. Now, to talk a little bit more about Isaac, he did show off some of his athleticism in this game. He was definitely a bit of a dual threat guy. He broke off one round, I think, for 11 or 12 yards. And his decision making, I believe, was better. He only threw one interception this game, and I think some of that comes down to all the instances he had where he overthrew or under through the ball to our receivers. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you’re putting it somewhere that is uncatchable for the defense, I would take that over a potential interception any day. They did give us some trouble on offense. They put up 21 points most out of any of our first three opponents. Some of this might be because their quarterback is a familiar face in Bryson Barnes. He was Cam’s replacement for most of last season, as we all know. Looked interesting seeing him in a different jersey, but maybe it had to do with him knowing some of our schemes, just remembering stuff about how we play football. But he was definitely a dual threat that day. He broke off a couple big runs for some first downs, as well as having a successful day throwing the ball. He went 16 for 31, over 200 yards passing and two touchdowns. With this being said, our defense still had a great day. We got two interceptions, which is a great sign. I think we really want our defense to continue to be feared and respected, and the more turnovers we forced the better. They also ran the ball decently well. Rahsul Faison, their running back, had a very efficient day, rushing for over 100 yards. But I’m not too worried about that. I think our rush defense has always been fantastic. I just think we played a little less aggressive this game because we know we didn’t need to. So I’m definitely looking forward to better defensive showings in the future. 

Brooke Hale: Moving into week four, what do you expect from the Utes on the road against Oklahoma State against a huge opponent? What do you expect from the Utes?

Christian Stringer: Yeah, so this game is arguably the biggest matchup within the Big 12, with Utah being ranked No. 12 and Oklahoma State being No. 14 in the most recent [rankings]. This game absolutely has playoff implications. Since we are two of the main teams hoping to win the Big 12 and get that first round by within the Big 12 as we start conference play. We are currently leading in a couple of important statistics, specifically defensively. That would be third down defense, first down defense, team sacks — where we’re averaging over three a game, which is great — as well as team passing efficiency. But yeah, as we start our official conference play we are hoping to be healthy with Cam playing this game and not getting re-injured, and maybe knock on some wood. We all know how tough of a player he is, but I think something we really need to focus on as a fan base is hoping that he gets better about avoiding contact when it’s not necessary. You know, sometimes a quarterback can slide or run out of bounds, and our quarterback Cam is so tough, sometimes he wants to just drive right through the defender. I’d say, look to be a little more cautious this game with such an aggressive Cowboys defense. But he still should present them with a handful of problems, being that he is a dual threat quarterback when we are offense with constant big play potential. We’re also known for our strong run defense, only allowing 3 yards per carry against our opponents as far, which is a great thing for this specific matchup, where their offense tends to rely on their standout running back Ollie Gordon. He won the Doak Walker last year. He is looking to have another award-esque performance, and he is just an absolute monster. We just cannot let him get going. In these past three games, though, when teams have managed to stop Ollie Gordon, their quarterback, Alan Bowman, has really stepped up. He’s averaging over 300 yards a game while throwing eight touchdowns and two INT’s over this past three. As long as we can hinder their run game without overextending in order to let their quarterback, you know, free up and make big plays, we should be all right. He’s yet to face a defense quite like ours as well. The game that we should look at to take the most away from this team would definitely be the Arkansas double OT game. Former Ute Ja’Quinden Jackson actually tore them up. He ran for 149 yards and three touchdowns in this game. So if we can look for Micah Bernard to have a big game, get 15-plus carries, run the ball, efficiently, we should be looking good. They haven’t had much of a challenge outside of that Arkansas game, so we’ll just have to wait and see how we really stack up to them on Saturday.

Brooke Hale: Great well thank you so much for your thoughts Christian and thank you for listening to The Home Stretch, The Daily Utah Chronicle sports podcast. Stay tuned for new episodes coming every other week.

Transcribed by Otter.ai

Producer/Host: Brooke Hale — [email protected]  | @brookehale