Utah CFB Defensive Awards: Week Three

Week Three, more often than not, is the week before conference play, and is a pivotal week in terms of demonstrating what a team has learned in the first couple of weeks.

Gone are the excuses of the week one jitters or the inconsistencies of week two.

By now, teams are hoping to have a clear identity and direction for their football program alongside a few wins as they head into the most impactful games of the season.

Unfortunately for the state of Utah, only the power 4 teams walked away with a win after the week three festivities, as if Utah or BYU fans are too concerned.

We knew an undefeated week was out of the questions with both Utah and Utah State squaring off in Logan, but a 5-1 week was on the table.

Rather it’s a 2-4 week for D1 schools here in Utah.

That being said, the individual defensive performances were still note worthy and whether a team won or lost, anyone is eligible to take home one of the following awards with a stellar outing:

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: KOHNER CULLIMORE, SOUTHERN UTAH

For the first time into this fresh college football season, no individual player recorded 2 or more sacks.

Keanu Tanuvasa had a single sack against Utah State for -6 yards and got into the backfield a bit more with another tackle for -7 yards, he also added two quarterback hurries to his resume in the Utes win.

You'll hear more about Tanuvasa later on.

BYU saw Jack Kelly rip down Wyomings QB for -10 yards.

Parker Andrus had his first career sack for SUU VS UC Davis.

Utah Tech got home one time in the form of Uili Angilau with a takedown of -6 yards in the loss to Northern Arizona.

Only one player eclipsed the 1 sack mark last weekend and that was SUU’s Kohner Cullimore with 1.5 sacks for -12 yards against the Aggies.

The first team All-UAC linebacker was impressive with 5 total tackles, 3 of which were solo.

Not only did Cullimore have more sacks than anyone during the week, but had more tackles than any other player who had at least one sack, giving him the nod for pass rusher of the week.

BALL HAWK: MONTAE PATE, WEBER STATE /// LACAREA PLEASANT-JOHNSON, SUU

Multiple guys hauled in a pass from the opposing quarterback this week, the key word being “a” as in a singular pass.

No one had multiple interceptions, which will be the norm more often than not, but a two pick day normally signifies a clear winner.

For the single pick candidates, 5 of the 6 D1 teams forced a turnover through the air.

Jordan Vincent picked off the Utes for Utah State and went 15 yards the other way.

The Utes on the flip side had two players with a pick, becoming the only team with multiple interceptions in week one.

Smith Snowden was one of the names with a pass breakup to boot.

Cameron Calhoun also took one away from Utah State’s Bryson Barnes on a 34 yard return with a pass breakup of his own.

BYU kept streaking with another interception this time with Evan Johnson.

And although we didn’t have a multi interception performance we got to witness two house calls in week three via the pick six.

Both SUU’s LaCarea Pleasant-Johnson and Weber State’s Montae Pate scored from the defensive end in their respective ball games.

Pate took a tipped ball 30 yards for a Wildcat score that would help tie the game up at 10.

Pleasant-Johnson jumped a small curl route to perfection to go 59 yards the other way not even two minutes into the game to give SUU a early 7-0 lead after the PAT.

Any time you have two pick sixes, both must be recognized as winners for one of the most exciting plays in football.

TFL: KEANU TANUVASA, UTAH

Remember when I said we would hear more about Keanu Tanuvasa later on?

Well the time has come.

Tanuvasa had his one sack mentioned earlier, a loss of 6 for Utah State, but also had a big time tackle in the backfield causing an Aggies loss of 7.

His two total tackles for loss were the most in the state and Tanuvasa also led the way in forcing opponent yards lost by making Utah State lose 13.

Both big time tackles came from solo efforts for Tanuvasa.

His showing in Cache Valley is enough to give the Ute defensive tackle the honors.

TACKLER: CLYDE WASHINGTON, UTAH STATE

Shifting from tackles to just pure tackling, it was another week with only a handful of players posting overly high tackle numbers.

Utah was led by Van Fillinger’s 8 tackles.

BYU saw 4 different players have 4 tackles a piece to pave the way. (Tyler Batty, Harrison Taggart, Raider Damuni and Isaiah Glasker.)

Devyn Perkins and Mason Stromstad both poured in six tackles for Southern Utah to led the team,

For the second straight week, Spencer Rich, led the Utah Tech Trailblazers in tackles with 8.

Angel King was getting it done for Weber State posting 9 tackles.

To no ones surprise, the only team with double digit tacklers was Utah State who has had two players record ten or more tackles every single week, 3 games into the season.

A familiar name for USU was Jordan Vincent, the guy with the interception and last weeks winner of this very award.

Vincent had 11 tackles in the loss to Utah, 2 solo and 9 assisted while also getting in on a TFL for a 0.5, -1 yard on the stat sheet.

His teammate, Clyde Washington, joined Vincent with 11 tackles, 3 solo, 8 assisted.

Washington recorded 1.5 tackles for loss, tied for 2^nd in the state with Utah Tech’s Micah Vuki.

The extra solo tackle, the 1 more tackle for loss and the pursuit to name as many unique players as possible gives Clyde Washington the win this week.

DEFENSIVE UNIT: BYU COUGARS

SUU had 7 tackles for loss VS UC Davis

Utah did the same at USU with 7 tackles for loss while chipping in two sacks, 6 quarterback hurries, two interceptions and 6 pass breakups.

But no team controlled their opponent defensively like the emergent BYU Cougars.

BYU held Wyoming in check in front of their own fans by allowing only 217 total offensive yards.

The next best number in the state was SUU holding UC Davis to 355 yards, a 138 yard difference.

The cougars held the Cowboys to 3.4 yards per play on average, easily the best in the state.

140 pass yards on 31 attempts, 77 rush yards for 2.3 yards per carry was all the Cowboys could muster.

Wyoming was held to 7-17 on third down (under 42 percent) and only made it to the red zone twice.

BYU forced the Cowboys into 8 punts in 26:38 of possession time.

14 points allowed was the lowest total of the week in Utah.

With only the one interception, BYU didn’t have the turnovers or sacks other teams had this week but they had the pure start to end domination that makes fans excited for the long haul.