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In post-game film study, Kyle Whittingham and his coaching staff saw something the refs missed in Saturday's game against Arizona: three false starts on the Utes.
No, Utah isn't planning on complaining to the league — not when they already had 11 flags thrown for false starts, which at times made Whittingham bury his face in his hands on the sideline.
Imagine, then, how it felt to be senior center Nick Nowakowski, a former walk-on making his first start. Recounting the game on Monday, Nowakowski gave an uncomfortable chuckle.
"It was kind of breaking it in," he said. "It was a new experience. By the second half I was feeling a little more comfortable, more in a groove by that point."
The details of what exactly frustrated the Utes so completely are in contention. Whittingham alleged after the game that Arizona was calling out Utah's cadence at the line of scrimmage, forcing false starts — technically a penalty.
While Whittingham was fired up Saturday night, saying "it is not a part of the game," he seemed more cooled down by Monday, reasoning that as long as the Wildcats were doing it without getting called, Utah had to deal with it on its own.
"It took us too long to get it figured it out but we finally got it solved in the second half," he said. "I'm not complaining about Arizona. Congratulations to them on getting us to react. We were doing a poor job reacting to it."
Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said Monday that the accusation that his linemen were making disconcerting signals was an "empty accusation." He said his defensive line was "stemming," legal pre-snap movement at the line of scrimmage from side-to-side to create additional leverage. Any calls, he said, were his defensive linemen communicating when to move.
"Who cares what [Whittingham] said? I accuse them of making more plays that won the game. My accusation is probably right," Rodriguez said. "Our guys make a call. We're not doing it when the quarterback is saying his cadence. You're allowed to communicate defensively."
A Pac-12 spokesman said the league was aware of the accusations of disconcerting signals, and was reviewing the game.
Nowakowski didn't address the cadence mimicking, but he did say Arizona was anticipating quarterback Troy Williams' claps for the snap, and moving at that moment. After Utah racked up eight first-half false starts, the team changed the snap to a simple call from Williams: That was enough to compose the offense for only three second-half false starts.
TV cameras caught significant frustration on the sideline, particularly between Whittingham and offensive co-coordinator Jim Harding. Whittingham said the false starts were "unnerving" to both men before they corrected the issue.
It was similarly difficult for Utah's offense to not beat each other up, particularly since so many different players were called for false starts. Williams said senior guard Isaac Asiata helped the team settle down at halftime.
"Everybody was kinda frustrated and wired up," Williams said. "It was a big game, so you try to do your best to calm everybody down. Isaac talked to the whole offense at halftime, and just told us to go out there and have fun and play our game. Not to look into the game too much, but go out there and do what you've been doing. Just play football."
Whittingham said Utah is looking at different combinations on the offensive line to get the "best five" on the field Saturday at Oregon State. That could include shifting Asiata or tackle Sam Tevi to the middle.
Nowakowski said he is preparing to start again — junior center Lo Falemaka "is a reach" to be healthy this week — and he's trying to be ready if Oregon State's line is stemming (which he suspects it will).
"We're going to have different snap counts, just different tools in case they start doing it again," he said. "We can't let what happened happen again. We just gotta improve, get better. We have to handle it."
Twitter: @kylegoon —
No. 21 Utah at Oregon State
P Saturday, 2 p.m.
TV • Pac-12 Network