Utah CFB Defensive Awards: Week Four

For many across the college football landscape the first week of conference play arrived in the form of a week four match up.

Out of the six Utah D1 colleges, 3 played conference games (Utah at Oklahoma State, BYU VS K-State and Weber State at Idaho State.)

Conference games or not, all six teams took the field and the Beehive state managed to go .500 for Week Four.

The 3-3 record included a 39 point shutout win in Natchitoches, Louisiana for Weber State at Northwestern State and two major statement wins for the big boys.

Both Utah and BYU put the Big 12 on notice with impressive defeats of Big 12 favorites and ranked squads.

Utah backed up the “best of the Big 12” talk with a 22-19 win at #14 Oklahoma State in a final score that made the game seem much more competitive than it was.

BYU shed the idea that their undefeated record was a byproduct of easy teams by dismantling #13 Kansas State in a 38-9 smack down in Provo.

Both the Utes and Cougars sit at 4-0 on the season and Utah rose two spots in the AP Top 25 polls to #10, best in the Big 12 still.

BYU cracked the Top 25 for the first time this season at #22, in what feels like something few could have predicted in the off season prior.

With such big wins from Utah squads, we also got big time performances, and we are here to recognize those showings in the form of:

BEST PASS RUSHER

BEST BALL HAWK

TFL MASTER

BEST TACKLER

BEST DEFENSIVE UNIT

Reminder: We are naming the top defensive efforts from the following groups at the D1 level in Utah and Utah only.

Lets do it.

PASS RUSHER: KEMARI MUNIER-BAILEY, WEBER STATE

Getting home on the opposing quarterback proved to be a more difficult task in week four than any other week of the season for our Utah D1 schools.

Van Fillinger got his weekly QB take down recording one in the Utes win.

Jack Kelly did the same for BYU.

Utah State’s one sack came via Miguel Jackson in the loss to Temple.

Utah Tech tied for the most team sacks in the state with 4 players recording a sack a piece in the loss to UC Davis.

Weber State was the other 4 sack team, one coming from Brayden Wilson whereas the other three were an individual effort.

Kemari Munier-Bailey had another monster showing for the Wildcats in the win at Northwestern State, ending the week as the only player in Utah to not only record more than one sack but to end with three total.

These 3 sacks punished the Demons for -22 yards.

3 sacks by any individual is certainly enough to earn the week four pass rushing honors.

BALL HAWK: ELIJAH DAVIS, UTAH

Couldn't have been a more difficult category to select here.

Two players had 2 or more pass breakups this week with Utah’s Snowden Smith batting away three passes and Utah Tech’s Quincy Lejay breaking up two.

5 players tallied an interception this week and only one did it at the non power 4 level.

That was Jayden Robertson who had an interception at Idaho State with the Bengals in the red zone.

The others came from Utah and BYU.

The Cougars interceptions came from unlikely spots with Defensive End, Tyler Batty, scooping up an errant pass against K-State.

The other pick was courtesy of Harrison Taggart, a Linebacker, plucking one out of midair.

Utah’s interceptions were both to secondary players with Safety Alaka'i Gilman and Cornerback Elijah Davis crushing the Oklahoma State passing game.

No players with an interception had a pass breakup, making this pretty difficult to choose from.

As far as interception return yards, Out of all 4 players, Taggart was the only one with an actual run back the other way, taking it 15 yards upfield before going down.

With the tough curriculum on hand, let’s go to scenario settings.

SUU would score of Robertson’s pick and BYU scored off of both Taggart and Batty’s interceptions as they continued to put the beat down on K-State, but it was Elijah Davis with the most impactful pick as him reading the receiving route to perfection would allow Utah to get one last field goal in, making it 22-3.

Why is that so important?

Well Oklahoma State would score 16 unanswered points after that before falling to Utah 22-19.

Without that interception you may not have a field goal, and without that field goal, you may have overtime, and with overtime, you may not remain undefeated.

TACKLE FOR LOSS: JACK KELLY, BYU

It was a massive week for Tackles for Loss in Utah.

Between all six teams there were 39 tackles for loss as a whole.

Weber State had 15, Utah Tech had 8, SUU with 5, USU had 4 and Utah and BYU both had three a piece.

A lot of these were individual efforts as only 4 players had 2 or more TFL’s on the week.

The aforementioned pass rush winner, Kemari Munier-Bailey, had a whopping 6 tackles for loss, easily the best in the state for -25 yards.

But he already won, sooooo, lets move on.

His runningmate, Bronson Childs had 3 TFL’s for -11 yards, none of which were sacks.

SUU’s Payton Payne brought exactly that with 2 tackles for loss and a -4 yards resulting.

BYU’s Jack Kelly joined the list with 2 tackles for loss as well forcing K-State 12 yards in the wrong direction.

One of the two tackles was a sack for -9.

Kelly also did something none of the others did, which was enough to take home the award.

You know the Tommy Prassas scoop and score that put BYU up 10-6 in the 2^nd quarter?

Kelly caused the fumble that would give BYU a lead they would never relinquish.

Getting it done at all levels, a sack, multiple TFL’s and a forced fumble checks all the boxes for this week four award.

TACKLER: HARRISON TAGGART, BYU

Quincy Lejay led the Trailblazers with 9 tackles, 7 of which were solo in an impressive defensive effort.

Jaden Robinson led the way for SUU with 9, 5 being solo, with a .5 tackle for loss.

Only two players recorded double digit tackle numbers in week four.

Utah State’s Jordan Vincent had a Pac-12 worthy effort once again with 11 solo tackles in the loss to Temple, with all of them being solo pursuits.

Vincent is no stranger to this award and is one of the best tacklers in Utah, but BYU’s Harrison Taggart did just enough to snag the award this week.

Taggart had 10 tackles, 3 solo, 7 assisted.

Most importantly however is the fact that Taggart had the interception as mentioned above, with a 15 yard return to boot and above all, got the win in an unexpected victory.

Taggart’s three fold performance consisting of double digit tackles, an interception and a win give him the edge.

That does it for week four. Tune in next time for week 5 honors to be bestowed upon your favorite players right here in the beehive state.