UNIVERSITY OF UTAH MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 15, 2014

Kyle Whittingham

UTAH – 20
STANFORD - 17

COACH WHITTINGHAM:  Another gutty performance by our guys.  It's a tough group that we have in our locker room there and very proud of them.  Hung in there.  Third overtime game I guess of the season.
And like I said, many times before, there's no quitting these guys.  They're physically tough, they're mentally tough and proud to be associated with them.
Defensive battle obviously for the first four quarters through regulation.  7‑all.  Both defenses played very well.  I don't think either offense reached 300 yards the entire game.  A lot of good defense out there and not a whole lot of offense.
Some good special teams play.  But in the end kind of the opposite of the ASU game a few weeks ago.  We had one more play in the tank than they did.
And they're a heck of a football team.  This place is a class place.  Really impressed with how they handled their business and just everything about this place, it's definitely a class place, like I said.  Questions?

Q.  Maybe the third or fourth time now that your offense has kind of saved its best for last.  Is there anything that's playing into that that maybe the casual observer‑‑
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  We're not doing it on purpose.  We'd like to use our best all game long, if possible.  I think Dave and the staff, through four quarters, had a sense of maybe the techniques and the leverage they may be playing in the secondary and they got what they wanted and that was the result, those two touchdowns in overtime.

Q.  Those were both addressed as play calls, touchdowns, can you talk about those?
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  Great play, wheel route to Kaelin, wide open.  Good throw.  Good catch.  Good protection.  Then the slant to Scotty.  Good to see Scotty, Scotty worked his tail off the last, however long, five years in the program.  Great to see him have success.
Found a nice ball tonight.  And had a PI that he drew in another situation.  And of course caught the game winner.  So it's great to see him have that happen.  Kaelin as well after last week's disappointment, to come back and be a big player in this game shows his resiliency.

Q.  Talk about Nate, single season sack record for Utah tonight?
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  He did?  Didn't realize that.  That's great.  He's been a stalwart for us all year long.  And he is the team leader, as I've said many times before.  And it's great to see him have the individual success he's having.  And it's helping contribute obviously to our team's success.

Q.  The winning season for the first time since 2011, what your thoughts are?
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  I guess that's seven.  So‑‑ I haven't had time to think about that, but that's good for‑‑

Q.  I'll do that for you.
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  Proud of our players, happy for them.  It's all about the players.  Happy they've accomplished that.

Q.  It's not the first time that Tom Hackett once again with a pretty huge night for you guys, talk about the importance of that.
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  Him flipping the field position time and time again.  We had the one just hit about a half a yard in the end zone.  I know he wishes he had back that went for touchback.  He hates touchbacks.
But he kicked the ball exceptionally well.  Didn't allow Montgomery, who is a heck of a player, to ever get on track in punt return game because he kept the ball away from him.  That was our plan going in, try to keep it out of his hands, both on the kickoff game and the punt game.  And both Tom and Andy did a great job doing that.

Q.  Did you resolve you're not going to set the world afire offensively but you're getting just enough‑‑
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  We're doing whatever we gotta do.  We're just trying to protect the football first and foremost, which is what we did.  Zero turnovers.  It's huge in a game like this.
And we're not very prolific right now on offense.  We're not putting up huge numbers.  But I believe we're playing smart.  And we're playing disciplined.  And tonight we had just enough, like I said.

Q.  Can you talk about maybe some of the unsung heroes maybe that aren't showing up on the stat sheet tonight, any good ones?
COACH WHITTINGHAM:  Okay.  Let's see we talked about the specialists, Scotty.  I thought Kenric Young came in, even though he didn't catch a bunch of balls, he blocked very well, our true freshman, the wide receiver, and he replaces Timny Patrick.
I thought he stepped up in the situation and didn't have the deer in the headlights look.  He was ready to play and competitive.
Travis‑‑ Travis I thought ran the offense well even though he didn't throw for a ton of yards.  I think we had about 175.  He took care of the ball, made good decisions, completion percentage was very good.  And then probably the defense overall, yielded very little on defense throughout the whole evening.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports