Another close one for Wyoming against one of the nation’s best defenses in its 22-10 loss at Utah Saturday night.

I find it a little ironic that in its last two games the Cowboys lost to teams both with top 25 defenses nationally in terms of scoring and total yards. They also lost to teams that replaced their starting quarterbacks with backups in the second half.

But more importantly, or disturbingly for UW, its offense continues to sputter.

Granted, Air Force and Utah’s defenses have done that a lot this season. But this game was another example that the Cowboys lack play-makers offensively and the line is still a work in progress.

Perhaps UW found another playmaker as junior quarterback Robert Benjamin saw time at receiver. He caught three passes for 17 yards, and on a frazzle-dazzle play threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to true freshman Austyn Carta-Samuels. Benjamin wasn’t happy his team lost, and said a ball that deflected off his hands and into a Utah defender in the fourth quarter was why UW lost.

That’s debatable, but Benjamin seemed happy that he is back in the team’s plans. Benjamin said this was the first time he had ever played receiver. See more on him in Monday’s paper.

Also, it was nice to see senior receiver Greg Bolling have a solid game. He had three catches for 35 yards. On a team desperate for play-makers it can use all the help it can get.

One of the the more underrated players in the game was sophomore punter Austin McCoy. He averaged 44 yards on six punts with a long of 57. Two punts were downed inside Utah’s 20-yard line. He kept Utah pinned back in its own territory early on.

Utah changed its play-calling duties prior to the game as offensive coordinator Dave Schramm went down on the field and receivers coach Aaron Roderick was up in the booth calling plays. Could a quarterback change be coming as well as freshman Jordan Wynn replaced junior Terrance Cain in the second half?

We will see, but even though it wasn’t overly impressive, Utah won and showed why it has won 21 of its last 22 games and 28 of its last 30.

If UW can get some consistency going on offense it has a chance to win some games in November. If it can’t, it may not win another one this season.

1. O-line improvement: UW coach Dave Christensen made it clear early in the week that the offensive line needs to play better after the Cowboys’ last game at Air Force on Oct. 17 — a 10-0 loss. Sophomore John Hutchins replaces junior Sam Sterner at left guard in an attempt to shake things up and seek improvement. It is a cliche to say it all starts with line play, but it really holds true for the Cowboys in this one.

2. Man-to-man: We’ve gone down this path before with the Cowboys: How will they handle man-to-man defense? They were horrible in a 24-0 loss at Colorado, but better in three straight wins over UNLV, Florida Atlantic and New Mexico. Utah is good at playing man — much better than Colorado. Can UW’s receivers get open long enough for true freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels to get them the ball, and can Carta-Samuels deliver the ball in what will be short and small openings to his receivers?

Also, refer back to thing No. 1 in this area.

3. Fumbles: Did a story this week on the fact UW has forced 14 fumbles this season, but recovered just four. Utah fumbled the ball six times against Air Force, but lost just two. The Cowboys need to continue to force turnovers, whether they are fumbles or interceptions, and when they do they must capitalize.

4. Let’s get physical: Utah is one of the more physical teams in the Mountain West, and has been for a while. UW has made strides here, but certainly is not at Utah’s level. Still, this game should be physical and how UW matches that will be vital if it is to have any success.

5. Forget the past: We all know about UW’s struggles against Utah recently: 1-8 this decade, losers of four straight in Salt Lake City by a combined score of 175-30 and losers of the last two games overall by a combined 90-7. If that serves as motivation for the returning players, great. But more importantly, those past failures need to be forgotten. This is a new team, new season, new coach and a new program in a lot of respects. This also will be a good guage to see how far the program is right now going against one of the MWC’s elite.

Christensen and UW are not into moral victories and the goal for the Cowboys is to win. But if UW at very least is competitive against Utah perhaps that is another sign of overall improvement.

See Saturday’s paper for more on the game. The live blog begins Saturday at 5 p.m. from Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake Cit. Go to http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2009/10/28/wyoming-vs-utah-live-blog/

My story on Utah for Friday’s paper is on senior free safety Robert Johnson. This guy is a stud and any one who likes and appreciates the game will enjoy watching this guy play.

But another interesting story is Utah junior running back Eddie Wide.

Here is a guy who had 49 carries over his first two seasons, yet has rushed for 100 yards in four straight games since senior starter Matt Asiata was lost for the season with a knee injury early in the Sept. 26 game against Louisville.

Wide isn’t a prototypical Utah running back. He’s smaller (5-10, 195) but has been just as productive. He is second in the Mountain West Conference with 529 rushing yards, and is tops with 6.1 yards per carry.

“He’s picked up the torch and continued to make our run game productive and efficient,” coach Kyle Whittingham said. “It doesn’t matter how you get the yards as long as you get them.”

“He’s a quick, little guy and one that runs low to the ground and is hard to bring down,” added Wyoming senior defensive tackle John Fletcher.

Wide is a good example of how Utah is in that mode where it replaces good players with good players, or to use one of the more often-used sports cliches: “They don’t rebuild, they reload.”

When you finish undefeated and win BCS bowls in 2005 and 2009, and have won eight straight bowl games that’s what you do.

Wide is from Las Vegas and was the Gatorade Player of the Year for Cimarron Memorial High in 2006. UW junior linebacker Alex Toney also is from Las Vegas and attended Shadow Ridge High. Wide said his father and uncle coached Toney in Pop Warner football, and that he and Toney are friends.

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As of now UW still plans to leave for Salt Lake City Friday afternoon via charter flight out of Laramie.

The team practiced indoors at times this week not because of the cold and snow, but because the snow fell so hard that the field couldn’t be cleared long enough.

The forecast for Saturday’s game is for clear skies and temperatures in the 40s or low 50s with light winds.

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Weather permitting I will be headed to Salt Lake Friday. Look for my weekly “five things to watch” for the game soon, and for some Halloween fun.

The live blog is on for the game as well.  We will go live at 5 p.m. The link is http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2009/10/28/wyoming-vs-utah-live-blog/

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham sees a lot of similarities in the defense his team saw last week against Air Force, and the one his team faces Saturday in Wyoming.

Both run a 3-4 scheme and both have forced a lot of turnovers.

Air Force forced six fumbles against Utah, but recovered just two. Air Force remains the national leader in turnover margin at plus-18.

UW has forced 14 turnovers and has a +8 turnover margin. Utah also is in the positive margin, but only at +1 and that has Whittingham concerned despite his team being No. 19 in the nation and beating Air Force 23-16 last Saturday in Salt Lake City.

“Hopefully the similarities in schemes (between Air Force and Wyoming) will carry over and we will be able to make progress, but ball security supersedes anything else,” he said.

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UW held its weekly news conference with players and coaches Monday in the Rochelle Athletics Center.

Some interesting notes include:

–UW coach Dave Christensen compared Utah junior quarterback Terrance Cain favorably to a former quarterback Christensen coached at Missouri in Brad Smith in terms their abilities to both run and throw. Cain has completed 63.2 percent of his passes for 1,503 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions, and has ran for 287 yards and two TDs.

–The only two players who won’t be able to play due to injury are redshirt junior safety Jamichael Hall (knee) and true freshman offensive lineman Thomas Vonashek (shoulder). Hall suffered a season-ending injury Oct. 10 against New Mexico and Vonashek was hurt in practice, although he was going to be redshirted this season anyway.

–Christensen spent most of the bye week in California recruiting. No new verbal commitments came from the trip, but UW recently got another. See Tuesday’s paper for more on that.

–Many players kept busy during the bye week with school, meetings and light workouts. Most watched last Saturday’s Air Force-Utah game on television, a game that featured the Cowboys’ previous opponent in Air Force go up against their next one in Utah.

“Utah’s offense struggled a little bit, but it still is going to be one of the best offenses we see this year,” senior defensive tackle John Fletcher said.

“What I really saw was how Utah’s defense presses and how aggressive and athletic they were,” added junior receiver David Leonard.

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Another week, another school Carta-Samuels will face that offered him a scholarship in high school.

Carta-Samuels said Utah offered him a scholarship, and Utes tight ends coach and special teams coordinator Jay Hill was the Utes assistant recruited him the most.

Even though a scholarship was offered, by the time Carta-Samuels made his decision the offer no longer was there.

Still, he has a lot of respect for Utah.

“The enthusiasm they have, the charisma they have, the poise they have being the No. 2 team the country last year all is impressive about them,” he said. “They’ve only lost one game this year and that was to a hell of a team in Oregon.”

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See Tuesday’s paper about a story on a change in the Cowboys’ offensive line, and Wednesday look news and notes from the other eight Mountain West teams.

Thanks mostly to your interest, which I am extremely thankful for, the blog has moved to a new home at www.wyomingcowboysblog.com to hopefully be easier to find and more user friendly.

More changes in terms of the look and design may be coming down the road.

I would like to know what you would like to see on the blog. There are lots of ideas being thrown around right now, and we will continue with the live blogging when we can at UW football and basketball games.

Any ideas and feedback are welcome and encouraged, and thanks again for your support and interest.