Finding the real Utes

The Utes weren’t impressive on Thursday night, even though they beat Montana State 27-10. Though the defense was fine, holding the Bobcats to 258 yards total offense, they ran up just 292 themselves – only 119 in the second half.

Quarterback Jordan Wynn seemed to be guiding his passes, rather than throwing them. It’s hard to tell whether his shoulder really is 100 percent as he says.

“It felt great,” Wynn said of his shoulder. “I got hit a few times, but I was able to get up quickly. My shoulder is stable.”

Still, I’m not ready to declare the Utes history just yet. That’s because the game was against Montana State. Utah didn’t need to unveil all its tricks in order to beat a Big Sky team. There was the one fake punt, but otherwise, it was pretty standard stuff. That makes sense to me. With 11 potential losses ahead, Kyle Whittingham probably didn’t want to pull out all the stops for that game.

Norm Chow’s offense looked pretty tame, but again, why alert the other Pac-12 schools what you’ve got coming?

While I don’t think the Utes are problem free, I do think they’re better than they showed on Thursday. Next Saturday against USC is when we’ll see what they really have to show in 2011.