Nate Johnson 'Upset' With Fans Booing, Felt Offense Was Too 'Conservative' Against UCLA
No. 10 Utah is 4-0, but to say it has been pretty showing the past few weeks would be an understatement.
The Utes were in a tight one against Baylor who was without starting quarterback Blake Shapen, and eventually pulled Byrson Barnes in favor of Nate Johnson. The dual-threat Johnson led the Utes back against Baylor, started and blew out Weber State, but struggled mightily against UCLA this past weekend. Now to be fair Utah has also been shorthanded, but the No. 10 team in the country is clearly held to insanely high standards regardless.
Johnson and the Utes ended up winning 14-7, but it was the Utah defense that really came through. They were getting pressure on Dante Moore all game long and even scored a touchdown via a pick-six. As for the offense, they accumulated just 219 yards of total offense and completely abandoned the pass. The showing was not nearly what fans or Johnson himself were expecting as Johnson issued an apology after the game, and Utah fans eventually began to boo the unit.
Something that Johnson told KSL Sports he was not pleased with.
“They didn’t really tell us they were going to do that till after the game,” said Johnson. “As you could tell the fans were kind of mad because we were getting ‘booed’. I was a little upset. When plays went bad they played it conservative and relied a little too much on the run game."
He also expressed frustrations with the play-calling as Utah ran the ball 48 times compared to throwing it 17 times.
"I think we ran the ball 40 times last game- something crazy," said Johnson. In my opinion, I think we should air it out more. We’ve got to get these receivers a chance to go make plays instead of just relying on our run game a little too much. In that conservative moment, you’ve got to keep playing. Whatever they are calling, you’ve just got to execute it.”
Johnson and company will likely need to air it out against Oregon State, as their run defense ranks as the No. 7 team in the country. When it comes to their pass defense they appeared to be somewhat vulnerable to big plays in their loss to Washington State as Cam Ward threw for over 400 yards and racked up four touchdowns.
The Utes are currently 4.5-point underdogs against Oregon State according to ESPN.