Utes could be without Dampier against Colorado

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 Sports) – The Utes not only lost a third straight game in the Holy War to BYU, but may have also lost its starting quarterback.

Devon Dampier suffered an injury in Saturday’s 24-21 loss to the Cougars and his status for this weekend’s home game against Colorado is up in the air.

“It’s week nine,” Dampier said Monday. “Everyone gets banged up at this point. But, it’s Monday, so we’ll see where the week goes.”

If Dampier can’t go, freshman Byrd Ficklin will make his first career start. Ficklin has played well in blowout victories this season, rushing for 111 yards and three touchdowns, while completing all nine of his pass attempts for 138 yards and one TD.

“That’s a distinct possibility,” head coach Kyle Whittingham said about the chances of Ficklin starting against the Buffaloes. “I can tell you that. We’ve got a ton of confidence in [Ficklin]. Every time he’s entered a game so far this year, he’s done positive things. If we end up going that route, then we’ve got the confidence in him that he can get it done.”

“I’m confident in all the quarterbacks,” wide receiver Ryan Davis said. “I love Byrd, I love Isaac, obviously Devin, but yeah, whoever is out there, I know they can play.”

The Utes did a lot of things well against BYU. They racked up almost 500 yards of total offense, but they bogged down in the redzone time and time again.

“I think our team played hard,” said Dampier, who threw for 244 yards and two touchdowns. “But so did they. They played harder than us that day and they got their win. But the great thing about football is you get another week.”

“We did some really good things in the game,” Whittingham said. “We out-rushed them, out-threw them, got more first downs than them, just a lot of positives. But we lost some key battles. Turnover margin, first and foremost.”

Whittingham was questioned by a lot of Utah fans for going for it three times on fourth down instead of kicking field goals. But Whittingham went by the analytics book which told him to go for it.

“First of all, if you think you’re smarter than analytics, you’re not,” Whittingham said. “Anybody out there, if you think you got a better grasp of the game and strategy than the analytics do, you don’t. You say, well, why didn’t you kick it? Well, yeah, we could have kicked it. Are we going to make it for certain? I mean, that’s not That’s not a guarantee. And and touchdowns are so much more valuable than field goals.”

Despite the loss to BYU, Utah still isn’t out of the Big 12 race, and if they can rebound like they did after the Texas Tech loss, they should be OK.

“Just continue to remember who we are,” Dampier said. “We set goals at the beginning of the season, and that still can play. The Big 12 is a very crazy conference.”

Utah (5-2, 2-2 Big 12) will host Colorado (3-4, 1-3 Big 12) Saturday at 8:15 p.m. at Rice-Eccles Stadium.