The Utes need to establish a presence & dominate Southern Utah

Heading into game two against Southern Utah, linebacker Lander Barton says Utah has to be better about executing.

In their matchup last week with the Florida Gators, the Utah Utes mostly relied on their veterans and didn't play very many freshmen in Gainesville. However, as one of the few freshmen who did play, linebacker Lander Barton received a significant amount of in-game experience. 

After reflecting on what he learned in the Swamp, Barton shared that the defense is focused on dominating SUU this week and cleaning up their previous mistakes.

"Florida was a great environment, good experience to play in, just wish we came out of there with a different outcome," Barton said.

"[I learned] for myself that I need to be able to think fast and react fast on the ball. There's a lot going on and I need to be able to know my assignment and how to react," He added.

Looking back at Utah's narrow loss to Florida, while the game did mostly come down to a few key plays, the defense struggled in several areas all night long. The defensive line was clearly dominated, Florida did a great job of creating issues, there were lots of missed tackles by the defense as a whole and they simply didn't execute the coaches game plan.

I talked with a few defensive players about Florida. The answers were pretty much the same.

-The coaches had a solid game plan but the players didn’t execute.
-Lots of missed tackles (27) & assignments.
-Utah’s D-line was dominated.
-Florida did a great job creating issues.

— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) September 7, 2022

"It was simple," Barton said. "We made mistakes. We need to be tougher, we've got to fix that this week and I feel like we should've won that game...It just got away from us...we had a game plan going in and we just didn't execute, that's on ourselves. We've got to be better in our execution of play calls and scheme."

Now looking ahead to Southern Utah, obviously the Utes don't want to overlook anybody, but this game does provide an opportunity to really perfect their execution. As a far superior team, the Utes should dominate and be able to establish a presence like Barton explained.

"We just really need to establish a presence in the run game with our front seven. We need to be dominant, just use this week as a week to get better and not overlook SUU...we need to play hard, play physical, play violent and just dominate overall. Each side of the ball we just need to dominate," Barton said.

Lander Barton, Utah Spring Game / Jeffrey Bennett, FanNation AllUtes

As previously mentioned, this matchup with SUU provides a unique opportunity for Utah to dominate and perfect their game. If they're able to get ahead early as anticipated, the starters should see some significant rest which means more time for the depth and freshmen. As one of those who should see even more time and action than last week, Barton is hoping to make some plays and be better in his assignments.

"I want to be able to make some plays, help off the ball or on the ball, be one-hundred percent in my assignments...play hard, to the best of my abilities and just hopefully make plays," Barton explained.

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