Defense Comes Through for Utah

Utah’s offense might have been peeking ahead to next weekend’s showdown with Colorado State. The defense, however, had its mind on business Saturday.

“Thank God for the defense,” Coach Ron McBride said after the No. 21-ranked Utes defeated Hawaii, 14-3. “Our defense made very few mistakes.”

That was fortunate for Utah, 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Western Athletic Conference, because the offense was less than dominating.

“It seemed like our heart wasn’t in the game,” said Sylvester Cooperwood, who ran for a touchdown and set up one with a long run. “It was cold and wet, but mostly we just weren’t working hard enough.

“Despite all that, we came through in the end. We made a couple big plays.”

Cooperwood bounded six yards with 13:54 left to play for the game’s first touchdown. Six minutes later, the sophomore fullback took a swing pass from Mike McCoy 46 yards to get Utah inside Hawaii’s 20.

Three plays later, McCoy lobbed an 18-yard touchdown pass to Curtis Marsh.

McCoy finished 19 of 29 for 250 yards.

McBride said he told his players to be “happy where you are 6-0 but don’t be satisfied. You’re going to face the best team you’ve seen next week.”

Hawaii (2-5, 0-5) got its only score on Carlton Oswalt’s 37-yard field goal with 8:08 remaining. It came after Utah’s Ernest Boyd knocked away what would have been a third-down, 19-yard touchdown pass from John Hao to Brannon Kennedy.

“We had a lot of dropped passes,” Hawaii Coach Bob Wagner said. “We came close to scoring . . . but the bottom line is you need to make the plays.”

On Rice Stadium’s artificial turf left wet and slippery by pregame rainfall, the teams struggled through three scoreless quarters. But while Hawaii expected--and got--little from a Utah defense ranked fourth nationally and yielding only 12.4 point per game, the Rainbow defense was surprisingly effective.

Utah’s balanced offense, ranked seventh nationally and tops in the WAC at 476.8 yards a game, managed only two field-goal attempts, both unsuccessful, against the scrambling Rainbows.

Hawaii’s most sparkling defensive effort came late in the third period when the Rainbows held the Utes on four downs from inside the nine, stopping Rob Hamilton’s fourth-down dive only inches short of the goal line.

On a nine-play drive highlighted by Charlie Brown’s 25-yard run, McCoy marched the Utes to a second-and-three at the Hawaii 31. But two runs yielded only a yard, and Dan Pulsipher’s 47-yard field goal try was no good.

After Hawaii punted, McCoy found Marsh for 17 yards, then hit Deron Claiborne on consecutive passes of 16 and 21 yards to put Utah at the Rainbows’ 20 less than a minute before the break.

However, a holding penalty killed the drive, and three plays later Pulsipher missed a 37-yarder wide right with 25 seconds left in the half.

Hawaii, meanwhile, managed to penetrate Utah territory only once in the first three quarters. With a first down on the Utah 40 midway through the second quarter, consecutive fumbles and an incomplete pass forced the Rainbows to punt.

Hao, making his second start for Hawaii, completed only eight of 25 passes for 119 yards and was intercepted once.

The Rainbows did little better on the ground, picking up only 84 yards to Utah’s 152 yards.