‘Beware the soothing sounds of praise’: No. 6 Utes won’t buy into hype ahead of Cincinnati game

After Utah’s euphoric 21-13 win over No. 14 Houston, coach Morgan Scalley was a bit emotional as he started his postgame press conference.

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“A reminder: it’s hard to win in college football. So grateful for our guys, their fight, and that’s what you need. I don’t really care about the stats. I’m so proud of these guys, just their fight. Devon Dampier, he’s our guy and so proud of his fight in the second half and the defense came up with stop after stop. Colton Swan, great game plan,” Scalley said.

Just minutes removed from the defining win of his young head coaching career in front of a raucous, black-clad sellout crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium that did its part to force a number of false-start penalties, Scalley was enjoying this win.

Utah heard all week long that it hadn’t played anybody good yet (Utah’s strength of schedule ranked No. 99 in the country entering Saturday’s game) and knew there were questions about how their secondary and pass rush would perform against a Houston offense that looked as potent as any in the country.

The Utes silenced the criticism with a statement win over the Cougars, holding a prolific offense to just one touchdown and 13 total points — 26 points below their season average.

Quarterback Conner Weigman exploited Utah’s secondary at times with three passes of 41 or more yards, but Utah’s defense recalibrated in the red zone, dialing up the pressure, playing solid coverage and stuffing Houston’s talented running backs.

Speaking of pressure, the main knock on the Utes’ defense this season has been the lack of sacks. While that issue reared its head at times on Saturday, Utah got to the quarterback when it mattered most in the fourth quarter.

Defensive tackle Jireh Moe had a superhuman rush on a key Houston drive in the fourth quarter, pushing back a Cougar offensive lineman into Weigman for a sack that put Houston behind the chains and forced a punt.

On the game’s defining play, safety Jackson Bennee came unblocked on a blitz, rocking Weigman and forcing a fumble that Moe recovered.

On Houston’s final drive of the game, Swan dialed up the pressure and Utah forced four straight incompletions to secure the win.

Utah answered a lot of questions with its performance on Saturday.

“I love these guys. Like I said, you have to test them before all this. Yes, when you’re under the lights, you’re going to find out maybe a little bit more, but we’ve had adversity already. They hear, ‘Utah hasn’t played anybody.’ They hear that and they hear that Houston’s going to get them. But that’s why they play the game. So proud of them,” Scalley said.

Scalley burst into Utah’s locker room to set off a wild celebration as the Utes moved to 7-0 for the first time since 2010.

Utah’s players and coaches will certainly celebrate this one.

With all of the hours poured in over winter conditioning, spring practice, summer workouts and fall camp to even get to the season, each victory deserves to be cherished, and that’s exactly what Utah plans to do.

Only for a little bit, though.

“We got Cincinnati next week. We’re going to enjoy this win tonight, but we got to go 1-0 next week. This is a great one, but it’s one and we can only celebrate too long and so long,” Scalley said.

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The Utes received a deluge of praise following the impressive win that lifted them atop the Big 12 standings and boosted them to No. 6 in the Associated Press poll, but Scalley cautioned his team not to buy into the hype.

“Pressure’s a privilege, brother. There’s pressure because you’re winning. We believe in what we do. We believe in the process and we got to keep it going though. Everyone’s going to pat us on the backs now and tell us how awesome we are. Beware the soothing sounds of praise,” Scalley said.

After passing its first big test of the season, the schedule doesn’t let up. If Utah wants its first Big 12 championship since joining the conference in 2024, it is going to have to earn it by beating some great teams along the way.

Next up is a Halloween road trip to Cincinnati. It’s not accurate to refer to this one as a “trap game” anymore — the Bearcats are 5-2, received votes in the AP poll and dominated No. 8 Texas Tech 37-24 at Nippert Stadium Saturday.

Utah will regroup, look at the tape and work on fixing any mistakes ahead of another big-time Big 12 game.

Area No. 1 for the Utes to clean up? Turnovers.

It felt like Dampier single-handedly willed Utah to the end zone at times in a 354-yard performance, but he also threw two costly interceptions.

The first came with Utah in field-goal range in the second quarter. Dampier had a rusher in his face and sailed the ball well over Creed Whittemore and into the arms of Kentrell Webb, costing the Utes a chance for at least three points.

The second turnover could have been extremely costly.

Utah had a one-point lead when it started its drive with 10:29 left in the fourth quarter, moving down the field with ease until Dampier tried to float a pass to Wayshawn Parker on the run. It was a poor decision that resulted in an easy interception for Houston’s Latreveon McCutchin at the Cougar 33-yard line.

Moe made sure Houston wouldn’t capitalize on the turnover with his impressive sack, but Utah needs to cut down on giving the ball away as it goes through the gauntlet of the next three games.

“The two turnovers, again, we got to learn from that. We can’t turn the ball over like that,” Scalley said.

Utah knows the road to the conference championship game, and a potential College Football Playoff berth, is going to be hard. But the Utes control their own destiny after getting a leg up on the Big 12 on Saturday and are prepared for the challenge ahead.

“We talked about reaching the college playoffs. This is the road. This is the road you got to take to get there, so there’s no need to be nervous. We believed we were going to be here since spring ball. That was kind of the message, let’s go out there and do what we do,” Dampier said.

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