Utah Utes College Football Pregame Quote, 09/18/2023

We took care of business on Saturday. We did what we were supposed to do, and now it is time to move into Pac-12 play. Against Weber State, it was more methodical play, less explosiveness to it. The defense played outstanding; they were just suffocating again. Our M.O. through the first three weeks has been really good tackling. The offense had our best numbers of the season from yards and points, so we did some good things. I don’t want to downplay it, because we won the football game, but now it is on to conference play. UCLA is a good football team. They have a ton of talent and are well-coached. They’ve done a good job with the portal guys they have brought in and it is going to be a great matchup for us. We have them at home, and hopefully our home crowd shows up like it almost always does, and can help provide a home field advantage for us. It is something we feed off in Rice-Eccles Stadium ‚Äì that crowd.

On Nate Johnson getting his first-career start at quarterback:

I thought for his first start as a collegiate quarterback, he did pretty darn good. He didn’t get pressed, didn’t have any panic in him whatsoever. He just proceeded to run the offense through all four quarters. He played well and it was a good job in Cam’s absence.

On Munir McClain’s game against Weber State:

He is a big, physical receiver. It doesn’t look like he is running very fast, but he is running really fast. He has a great 40-yard dash time. He is just smooth and effortless, like he is just gliding. He made some plays on the field and had his best day as a Ute by far. He made the most of his opportunities. He is a tremendous athlete.

On Mikey Matthews’ toughness coming from playing rugby:

I know a lot about rugby and feel pretty familiar with it. I never saw him play personally, but knowing that he played rugby shows that he has toughness. It shows that he isn’t afraid. We also look at wrestlers to fall into that category. That is a big plus as a coach when you see a guy that wrestles or plays rugby, that definitely plays into the recruiting.

On if the defensive success has given them latitude on offense:

We have a lot of confidence in the defense and they have performed very well through the first three weeks. We know that we don’t have to score 40 points to win because the defense has done a nice job of keeping teams’ getting points on the board. So that does play into how we are approaching the offense.

On Nate Johnson’s ability to be accurate in the throw game:

The more confidence that Coach Ludwig has in him, which is building day-by-day, the more you are going to see the offense open up and let Nate have more access to a greater number of plays. His playlist is about half of what Cameron Rising’s would be. But it keeps expanding with each game, and eventually he will get to the point where he has everything at his disposal.

On if he gets a little more amped up when conference season arrives:

Every week is the same to me because every game counts the same to me, every game is important. I think that has been one of our strengths through the years, to not get on the rollercoaster, to just be at a high level every week and prepare the same way. We don’t try to play outside of the framework of our structures. We have to handle adversity, which we’ve done an excellent job of doing this year so far.