What is Utah focusing on during bye week practices?

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When you think about a college football bye week, the first thing that comes to mind is time off to relax and recover before getting back into the day-to-day grind of the season.

While Utah will certainly afford its players that opportunity during its first of two bye weeks this year, after last week’s 23-10 loss to Arizona that saw some ongoing issues bubble to the surface, there’s going to be some tough practices — and film room work — this week.

Obviously, after last week’s issues, red-zone work is a huge focus for the Utes during the next two weeks of practice.

“Well, we know exactly what needs to happen. We got to be better schematically, put our kids in a better position to succeed. We got to tweak some things in practice, the way we’re going about it. We’ve got it all mapped out,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

“I’m not going to say anything. Arizona State, we’re not going to tell them what we’re going to do, or how we’re going to do it. We definitely identified problems, and we know that we can get a lot better in that area.”

Utah scored a touchdown and a field goal on two of its four red-zone opportunities, but came away with just three points during its first three trips inside Arizona’s 20-yard line due to going for it on fourth-and-2 twice and failing to convert.

The 81.8% red-zone scoring rate (which includes touchdowns and field goals) ranks 87th in FBS, but the ultimate goal is always to score a touchdown when inside the 20. Utah is only doing that at a 50% clip, which needs to improve as the Utes head into the second half of the season.

Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig’s red-zone play-calling needs to be better, no doubt about that. That’s something Whittingham acknowledged postgame. Utah had six straight runs on its first trip to the red zone, and Arizona keyed in on Mike Mitchell during the last two plays of the drive, stuffing him for a turnover on downs.

“It starts with me. You got to have a better red-zone package. The buck stops right here and so if we don’t have a good enough arsenal in place, enough creativity down there, then that’s something we got to look at,” Whittingham said.

Other times in the red zone, execution by the players left something to be desired.

“Execution — I’m not going to blame the players though, but sometimes it goes down to being a little off with your timing or just a little bit off with your execution,” Whittingham said.

Aside from the red-zone woes, the most pressing issue for the Utes to fix during their bye week? Their lack of physicality in the trenches and missed tackles.

While Utah got decent push at times in the run game, pass blocking was a weak spot on Saturday as Arizona sacked quarterback Isaac Wilson twice and forced a hurry eight times.

“We weren’t physical enough and really they came ready to play and we were not as ready as they were,” Whittingham said.

Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita was pressured 13 times by the Utes on Saturday, but the Utes couldn’t sack him.

“We blitzed him several times where we had him dead to rights with an unblocked blitzer, but he just sidestepped us,” Whittingham said. “We got to do a better job of coming under control.”

In addition, Arizona gashed the Utes too many times on the ground, outrushing Utah 161-84.

“We got outrushed two to one essentially and that can’t happen,” Whittingham said. “I mean, that’s exactly how we beat people. So it was disappointing to see that happen.”

Utah had 15 missed tackles against Arizona, continuing a trend that’s been with the program since the Baylor game, when the Utes also whiffed on 15 tackles. There was improvement against Utah State (six missed tackles) but they were back to double-digits against Oklahoma State (11 missed tackles) and Arizona.

“Our tackling has been one of our strong suits for years and this is back-to-back weeks now,” Whittingham said postgame.

The lack of finishing tackles has led Whittingham to implement live tackling in this week’s practice. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Utes will be having “physical practices” before giving their players a bit of a break to rest and recover.

“Getting back to being physical, but you also want to give them a break,” Whittingham said.

“They’ve been playing football now for two straight months, if you go back to the first of August when fall camp started. So it’s time for a bye week and it comes at a good time in that respect. Let them get some of the bumps and bruises healed up, get the legs back underneath them and refresh, get ready for the second half of the season.”

In case you missed it

Quarterback Cam Rising has missed Utah’s last 3.5 games with a finger injury.

As Utah gets a week off, here’s where things stand with Rising , who reportedly suffered a dislocated finger and laceration during the Baylor game in Week 2, and his desire to return to the field to lead the Utes.

From the archives

Extra points

• Big 12 power rankings: There’s a new No. 1 — hello, BYU — as conference chaos ensues ( Deseret News )
• ‘Awful, awful’: No. 10 Utah’s red-zone woes, second-half offensive struggles lead to 23-10 loss to Arizona ( Deseret News )