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There are individual reps. There's 7-on-7. There's 11-on-11. Troy Taylor has watched his quarterbacks through keen eyes through all of it.

But on Friday, he said, it was much like seeing them all for the first time.

In the Utes' first spring scrimmage, gone were the white jerseys that protect quarterbacks from getting hit. And Utah's new offensive coordinator was able to see his passers with fresh perspective — the one that will matter most when Utah ultimately does land on its starting quarterback.

"Quarterbacks are like teabags, right? You don't know what you've got until you put them in hot water," Taylor said. "We wanted to have a little contact, see how they reacted to it. And I was pleased with how all four of them played."

As many spring scrimmages are, Friday's was muddled at times. It beat at a slower pace than Taylor eventually wants to run, and the youth of the offensive line showed, particularly after the first-string unit.

But Troy Williams got things out to a crisp beginning: The returning starting quarterback led a scoring drive on his first series, with an 18-yard pass to Saiosi Wilson to get down to the red zone, followed by a 10-yard rush for a touchdown on fourth down. The play, one of the few touchdown drives on the day, helped separate Williams from the pack — and demonstrated Williams' growing trust with Taylor.

"Coach Taylor had great confidence in us to go for it on fourth down and we made it happen," Williams said. "I just have to continue to build on that, continue to progress in each and every practice and try to earn that trust."

The scrimmage helped underline that the quarterback battle, which is primarily taking place between Williams and rising sophomore Tyler Huntley, isn't necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. While Williams' accuracy has been arguably his best attribute, Utah's defense also had trouble accounting for Huntley's scrambling ability. The native Floridian was plenty slippery.

While Utah's defense is happy to hit, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley said, there are other times when the quarterbacks make them wish for non-contact.

"You also see times where they escape," he said. "There's some athletic guys. Running quarterbacks really cause issues."

The Utes were noncommittal on making the quarterbacks live again this spring. The decision on a starter isn't expected to be made until August.

Utah split first-team reps between Williams and Huntley on Friday, leaving Alabama transfer Cooper Bateman with the second-team reps. He accounted for the most snaps of the scrimmage, after spending much of the spring getting third-team scraps. Coach Kyle Whittingham called the extended look at Bateman "by design," and both he and Taylor thought he did well.

The highlights included a 48-yard touchdown pass from Bateman to freshman Samson Nacua, who dashed the final 25 yards across the field to the end zone.

"I turned my head and saw the ball coming my way," Nacua said. "I said, 'Catch the damn ball first and worry about the rest later.'"

There were many more "almost" big plays on offense, none that was more cringe-worthy than a Raelon Singleton drop in the end zone after an on-target Huntley throw. Others were capped off by defensive plays, such as breakups by Chase Hansen and Terrell Burgess. Julian Blackmon, who got experience last year and is part of a cadre of underclassmen pushing to start at cornerback, managed to pull in an interception off a tipped pass.

Much more has to be done for Utah, which has to get healthier, more secure in its schemes and has to run everything faster. But as far as scrimmages five months ahead of the season opener go, Whittingham said, it wasn't half bad.

"It wasn't perfect, lot of things to iron out," he said. "But when you look at it in its entirety and the execution for the eight practices we've had in this offense, the way the defense tackled, the amount of penalties which were very few, ball-handling was good — I think it was a really good start."

kgoon@sltrib.com Twitter: @kylegoon —

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