Offensive failure dooms Utah in loss to Northwestern in Las Vegas Bowl

At one point this season, the story of a walk-on pig farmer who stuck it out for years and went on to quarterback the college team he grew up cheering for could have been the plot of a movie.

But there was be no Hollywood ending to Bryson Barnes’ Utah career.

In a 14-7 loss to Northwestern in the Las Vegas Bowl Saturday, Utah’s fifth consecutive bowl loss, the senior quarterback had his worst game of the season.

Barnes went 8 for 13 passing for 55 yards and threw two interceptions, finishing with a quarterback rating of 66.3. After a bad first half in which he was 4 for 8 for 10 yards and -21 yards rushing — he was sacked three times — his quarterback rating was 10.5.

Barnes underthrew Money Parks in the first quarter on a deep shot for his first interception and overthrew Parks in the second quarter for his second pick.

Both interceptions were easy snags for Northwestern cornerback Jaheem Joseph.

Barnes, who entered his name into the transfer portal before the bowl game but started Saturday for the Utes, held onto the ball too long at times and didn’t see open receivers in some instances. At no point did it feel like he ever found a groove.

“Not a good showing by us today. Congratulations to Northwestern. They played well. Our offense completely stymied,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “... Tough to win a football game scoring seven points and losing the turnover margin 3-0.”

While Barnes’ performance certainly didn’t help matters, seemingly everything that could go wrong for the Utes on offense did go wrong.

That started up front with the offensive line, which was missing two starters — left guard Keaton Bills and right tackle Sataoa Laumea — who opted out of the bowl game to prepare for the NFL draft.

Utah allowed five sacks and was never able to consistently to get the run game the holes it needed.

“They beat us up up front,” Whittingham said when asked what made it hard to get the offense going. “Yeah, typically we own the line of scrimmage. Tonight, that was not the case. We did not play as well as we typically do up front, and that’s where everything starts, up front, and so we weren’t able to really get much of a push.”

Running back Ja’Quinden Jackson, who has played through an ankle injury the whole season, had 55 yards on eight carries but left the game early in the second quarter due to an injury.

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Jaylon Glover had the ball stripped from him in the third quarter for Utah’s third turnover of the night.

Pretty much nothing worked when Utah had the ball.

Northwestern recognized Utah’s inability to move the ball through the air and was able to crowd the line of scrimmage and shut down the Utes’ run game.

Save for about three drives — two touchdown drives and another at the end of the first half that should have resulted in a field goal but Northwestern kicker Jack Olsen missed the attempt — Utah’s defense kept giving its offense chances.

The game was there for the taking for Utah, but the offense failed to execute.

In the midst of Barnes’ struggles, did the Utes think about inserting redshirt freshman quarterback Brandon Rose into the game to try and turn the tide offensively? The question arose when Rose was seen throwing at times during timeout breaks in second and third quarters.

But there was no intention to insert the redshirt freshman into Saturday’s Las Vegas Bowl.

“That was just him warming up. Yeah, he wasn’t instructed to do so or anything like that,” Whittingham said.

Prior to the bowl game, Whittingham and offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig said that Rose would be available to play. There was talk in October of Rose being “on the path” for a medical redshirt, but postgame Saturday, Whittingham said the redshirt wasn’t a consideration, rather that Rose wasn’t ready for game action yet.

“He just is not ready to do that yet. He’s just not grasped the offense and decision making,” Whittingham said. “He’s still in the learning stage — his learning stage — and he’s got a lot of things going for him.

“He’s got a big arm and he moves around pretty good, so it’s not indicative of where he could be at some point in time, but he’s just not ready to be thrust in there right now.”

There were also a few plays with Luke Bottari at quarterback. Bottari entered the game near the end of the third quarter after Barnes got hit and lost his helmet, causing him to go to the sideline to get checked out.

Bottari had one of the most productive passing plays of the game on Utah’s only touchdown drive, an 18-yard screen pass to Jaylon Glover, but Barnes was inserted back into the game on the very next play.

Was there any consideration of leaving Bottari, who helped the Utes beat Colorado, in?

“We talked about it, but when Bryson was ready to come back, we just decided that Bryson gave us our best chance to win,” Whittingham said.

To Barnes’ credit, he came in and completed an 18-yard pass to Munir McClain, followed that up with a 3-yard keeper and then Micah Bernard scored Utah’s only touchdown of the night, tying the game on an explosive 6-yard run in his first game action since sustaining an off-the-field injury after the season-opening win over Florida.

“I just felt everything released off my shoulders and when I got to the sideline it just all came out. The tears was flowing. It just felt good to be able to come back and get a touchdown in my first game back,” Bernard said.

Following Bernard’s touchdown, momentum seemed squarely on Utah’s side, especially after Northwestern backup quarterback Ryan Hilinski, who entered the game following a hit on starting quarterback Ben Bryant with 11 minutes left, sailed a pass on fourth-and-7 from Utah’s 33-yard line.

Barnes and the Utes got the ball back with 9:44 left in the game, vying to take the lead.

Glover had a 12-yard run to start the Utes off on the right foot, but then two straight runs went effectively nowhere, setting up a third-and-9. Barnes couldn’t find anyone and tucked it, running for seven yards to set up fourth-and-2.

The fourth-and-2 play was a run by Glover that was absolutey stuffed, and Utah turned the ball over on downs at the Northwestern 47-yard-line.

After struggling for a lot of the game, Bryant — who was cleared to go back into the contest — put together the Wildcats’ best drive following the turnover on downs.

The play of the game — a 34-yard pass thrown off Bryant’s back foot to A.J. Henning, who made a spectacular diving grab — set the Wildcats up in the Utah red zone.

“I mean, it was a great play. I feel like we were able to limit those explosive plays and the timing of that was real unfortunate,” Utes linebacker Karene Reid said.

Bryant found Bryce Kirtz on the next play to score what would be the game-winning touchdown.

Utah was down to its last chance and put together a decent drive with heavy doses of the ground game, plus an 18-yard pass from Barnes to Bernard. But on second-and-8, Barnes was sacked, then had an eight-yard completion to Luca Caldarella to set up the game-deciding fourth-and-3.

Barnes’ last-chance throw to Money Parks was late and broken up by Garnett Hollis Jr., and that was all she wrote on the 2023 season for Utah.

“Today is very forgettable,” Whittingham said. “We got to bury this one and move on. ... No positive came out of this game tonight. At least I can’t see it right now.”