Can Micah Bernard take Utah’s running game to a new level on Saturday?

All of Rice-Eccles Stadium, from the fans in the stands to Baylor’s coaches and players, knew what was coming.

Utah’s defense, which held the Bears to just 12 points and 223 total yards on Saturday, was rolling with eight tackles for loss, including three sacks. After Cam Rising exited the game with a finger injury, the Utes’ game plan for most of the second half was obvious — keep the ball on the ground for the majority of the time and don’t turn it over, especially with the defense playing the way it was.

So Baylor’s defense could guess with a high degree of certainty what was coming when the Utes’ offense embarked on their second drive of the fourth quarter.

Runs, runs, and more runs.

In all, Utah ran the ball 11 times on the game-clinching drive that bled over seven minutes off the game clock. There wasn’t even a play-action pass for Isaac Wilson mixed into offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig’s calls.

Nope, this game was going to be won on the ground, much to the delight of senior running back Micah Bernard.

“I kept hearing run after run after run. I’m like, all right, well that’s more carries, more touches. I’ve always wanted more carries, more touches,” Bernard said.

Though the Utes have handled running back duties by committee, Bernard has been the closest thing Utah has had to an RB1, and looked the part on Saturday. Mike Mitchell — who’s been dealing with “little nagging things that have bugged him throughout fall camp,” according to Utah coach Kyle Whittingham — hurt his ankle in the second quarter.

Mitchell was on the sidelines for most of the second half, but returned for the game-sealing drive, carrying the ball twice for 9 total yards, and Dijon Stanley adding two carries for 2 yards on the series.

Meanwhile, Jaylon Glover, the third running back in Utah’s “first tier” trio, didn’t get a single carry all game. Postgame, Whittingham said the junior “just wasn’t in the plan today.”

The ball was going to be in Bernard’s hands down the stretch.

Bernard had six carries for 60 yards on the pivotal series, including a 30-yard run on third-and-3 that moved the Utes into field-goal range.

“We was just going to gap scheme and I kept seeing the line washing everything down. So it was either going to go front side or back side and I kept it front side, seen a big hole,” Bernard said of his 30-yard run.

“I seen somebody rush and I was like, OK, lemme get around him. (If) I get around him, it’s going to be probably like a five-, 10-yard gain. But I looked back to the left and it was clear and I was like, all right, run it back that way and just kept running.”

Bernard finished the day with his third 100-plus-yard game of his career, totaling 118 yards on 19 carries, and added a receiving touchdown, making a strong case to be Utah’s RB1 moving forward.

“Very proud of Micah Bernard for what he did. He was 19 carries for over 100 yards and 6.2 I believe was his yards per carry, so he had a really productive day,” Whittingham said.

In the preseason, there were questions from Utah’s coaches, including offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig, about Bernard’s durability and ability to hold up under a heavy workload. After an off-the-field injury cost him all but two games of last year’s season, Bernard is healthy and ready to be Utah’s primary back, and should continue to see plenty of touches on Saturday against Utah State.

Even though Bernard has personally eclipsed Whittingham’s goal of over five yards per carry (6.6 against Southern Utah, 6.2 against Baylor), the run game as a whole has not passed that mark this season.

Utah’s head coach also wants to see total rushing yardage of 230 yards or more per game, and the Utes have been short in both games (185 vs. SUU, 170 vs. Baylor). While the run game has made some early-season progress, it’s not at the level Whittingham knows it can get to.

“I’m used to seeing 200 yards as a team, over 200 yards as a team rushing. We haven’t quite got to that mark, but also total offense, I haven’t seen big numbers really,” Bernard said.

Even after Bernard’s performance against Baylor, Whittingham still called it a running back by committee approach, but admitted that the senior back is “as close to being RB1 as we have right now.”

Bernard should get touches early and often against Utah State, and will get his chance to keeping proving why the Utes should funnel carries through him.

“Maybe he’ll take that over. We’ll see. We’ll see how things progress,” Whittingham said.

Whether it’s a heavy dose of Bernard, or a committee approach with carries by Bernard, Mitchell, Glover, Stanley and Charlie Vincent, the Utes need to produce more yardage on the ground.

“We just got to play our brand of football. We love to run the ball, we just going to run the ball like we usually do, or we’re going to play-action pass, whatever. We got the guys to do it. We just got to go out there and execute,” Bernard said.