New QB leads No. 17 Utah over New Mexico 45-14

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)—Utah freshman Jordan Wynn still hasn’t played a whole game.

Wynn didn’t have to finish his first start, passing for 297 yards and two touchdowns before resting in the fourth quarter as the 17th-ranked Utes beat winless New Mexico 45-14 Saturday night.

Wynn completed 18 of 28 passes while leading Utah to 557 yards of offense and the Utes’ highest point total in nearly a year.

“He’s performing like we need him to,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “He’s not playing like a true freshman.”

Good thing, too. Next up for Wynn and the Utes is one of the top defense in the country when Utah visits No. 6 TCU.

Wynn was called on a week before in the second half against Wyoming to revive Utah’s offense, which had a habit of stalling instead of scoring at the end of drives. That was hardly a problem against the struggling Lobos.

Utah scored all four times it got inside the 20 and broke open the game with three touchdowns in the third quarter.

“That was an explosion in the third quarter,” Wynn said. “We talked about it at halftime. We had 17 (points), but that’s not good enough for us.”

The Utes (8-1, 5-0 Mountain West) won their sixth straight and scored their most points since a 48-24 win over BYU last year to end the regular season.

Eddie Wide set a school record with his sixth straight 100-yard rushing game, gaining 122 yards in the third quarter alone and scoring on a 35-yard run to put Utah up 38-7. He finished with 145 yards on 20 carries with two touchdowns and Sausan Shakerin added 100 yards on 16 carries.

Jereme Brooks finished with six catches for a career-high 135 yards receiving and was one of seven Utah players to catch a pass as Wynn opened up the offense.

“He’s a pretty smart guy. He knows the offense well. He knows defenses pretty well, too and knows when to check in and out of things,” Brooks said. “Him back there being so smart just makes us a better offense as a whole. He can put any pass where he wants to put it.”

New Mexico (0-9, 0-5) lost its 13th straight, the second-longest streak in school history.

After gaining 200 yards in the first half, the Lobos had just 134 yards in the second—including just 33 yards in the third quarter.

“We have very little margin for error,” New Mexico coach Mike Locksley said. “That third quarter, we didn’t come out and execute like we did in the first half.”

The only setbacks for Utah were five fumbles, four of which the Utes recovered, and Wynn’s first career interception. But that was on a fourth-and-2 from the New Mexico 29 and the Lobos would have been better off dropping it instead of catching it at the 14.

Wide, Brooks and Shakerin scored two touchdowns each as the Utes outgained the Lobos 557 yards to 334. The Lobos also hurt themselves with nine penalties for 81 yards.

Donovan Porterie was 15 for 32 for 186 yards and a touchdown and B.R. Holbrook added a touchdown pass against the Utah reserves with 17 seconds left in the game for the Lobos.

New Mexico is in jeopardy of its first winless season since 1987. The Lobos still have No. 25 BYU next week and TCU left on the schedule, leaving them in need of a giant upset against a ranked team or a win over Colorado State on Nov. 21 to get at least one victory this year.

“We have a lot of pride and I know we can play,” Locksley said. “Right now the big thing for us is to finish this the right way for our seniors.”

New Mexico was still in the game at halftime, down 17-7, until Utah unloaded in the third quarter.

Wynn led the Utes 63 yards on the opening drive, completing a 20-yard screen pass to Shakerin, who bowled over a few Lobos at the goal line for his first career touchdown.

The speedy Brooks made it 31-7 on Utah’s next drive, scoring on a 29-yard reverse with eight minutes left in the third. Brooks had to make a right-angle turn to avoid going out of bounds, but kept his feet in and darted down the Utah sideline for his second touchdown of the game.

Brooks also caught a 69-yard pass from Wynn to put Utah up 7-0 in the first quarter.

DeVonte Christopher set up Utah’s next touchdown with a 10-yard punt return to the 35, where Wide took a handoff on first down and ran right through the Lobos to make it 38-7 with 4:06 still left in the third.

By the fourth quarter, it was time for the reserves for both teams to come in and finish it up.