• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Colorado St.-Utah Preview

Oct 19, 2010 - 2:02 PM By NOEY KUPCHAN STATS Writer

Colorado State (2-5) at No. 9 Utah (6-0), 6:00 p.m. EDT

Midway through the regular season, Utah continues to roll. After committing three turnovers in its previous game, though, there's still some room for improvement.

The ninth-ranked Utes look to keep their undefeated season alive as they host Colorado State on Saturday evening.

Utah (6-0, 3-0 Mountain West) is coming off a 30-6 win over Wyoming last Saturday in which Jordan Wynn's career-worst three interceptions overshadowed his 230 passing yards and two touchdowns.

"I was just careless with the ball," he said. "You can't force it into coverage. It won't happen again. I won't throw three interceptions again."

Despite the miscues, Wynn leads the MWC with a 158.6 passer rating and should bounce back against a Rams defense that has picked off only two passes.

With six takeaways and 12 turnovers, the Utes are a minus-6 in turnover margin, and coach Kyle Whittingham is counting on his team to step up on both sides of the ball as the season progresses.

"The only real disappointment is the turnover margin. Not just turnovers, but the combination of a few too many turnovers and not enough takeaways," he said. "That's been a real problematic area. We've got to do a better job taking care of the football and a better job taking the football away."

The Utes opened at No. 9 in the BCS standings and appear headed for a showdown with No. 4 TCU at home on Nov. 6. Whittingham, though, refuses to let his team look that far ahead.

"Like we've talked about, we take it one week at a time and try to stay focused and not look past anyone," he said. "Whether we pay attention or not it has zero impact. Our focal point is trying to play as well as we can each week and that stuff takes care of itself."

The Utes are averaging 45.8 points - fourth-most in the FBS - and are overwhelming favorites against the Rams.

"They've got a freshman quarterback and gotten better each week," Whittingham said. "They had a very good game against UNLV. I'm not sure they are where they would like to be but they have won a few ball games."

Pete Thomas led Colorado State (2-5, 1-2) to a 43-10 victory over UNLV on Saturday, completing 10 of 14 passes for 233 yards and a season high-tying three touchdowns.

Thomas will likely need to replicate his performance if the Rams hope to knock off the Utes, who own the nation's third-longest active home winning streak with 20 consecutive victories.

"We got to keep going. Utah is a great team and it's going to be a real tough game at their place," Thomas said.

Nose tackle Guy Miller also played a huge role in the Rams' latest victory, setting a school record with 4 1/2 sacks en route to being named MWC defensive player of the week.

"We needed a win, especially going into Utah next week," Miller said. "We really needed to change the momentum back into a winning season, and try to get something going this year."

The Rams are facing their third ranked team in four weeks but haven't defeated a Top 25 opponent since Aug. 31, 2002, when they knocked off then-No. 7 Colorado 19-14.

Despite Colorado State's struggles against elite teams, coach Steve Fairchild is looking forward to facing the Utes.

"It'd be nice to beat Utah for a lot of reasons," he said. "They're consistently at the top of our league, and that's what we aspire to do here at Colorado State."

Utah has won six of seven versus the Rams and leads the all-time series 54-22-2.