After Dark Out West: Utah Survives Colorado 27-24, Wake Forest Routs Cal 41-7

BOULDER, Colo. / BERKELEY, Calif.

The last two games on the West Coast on Saturday night told opposite stories about the same thing: how fast a college football game can turn after dark. In Boulder, No. 11 Utah survived the scare of its season, beating Colorado 27-24 at Folsom Field after the Buffaloes turned a 13-0 halftime deficit into a fourth-quarter fight. In Berkeley, there was no scare at all: No. 21 Wake Forest scored 34 points before halftime and beat California 41-7, with Gio Lopez throwing four touchdown passes in a game that was over by the second quarter.

Utah 27, Colorado 24: the unbeaten season that nearly wasn't

Utah arrived in Boulder 5-0 under first-year coach Morgan Scalley, having won every game by at least 14 points, and the first half looked like the rest of the season. Devon Dampier capped a 12-play, 75-yard opening drive with an 8-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Andrews — Utah has now scored a touchdown on every opening drive this season, according to USA Today's Buffaloes Wire live coverage — and Dillon Curtis field goals of 27 and 29 yards made it 13-0 at halftime. Colorado's first half, meanwhile, was a catalogue of self-harm: 70 total yards of offense against 82 yards of accepted penalties, eight flags in all, and two golden chances wasted — a red-zone interception thrown by Dampier that defensive tackle Dylan Manuel plucked off a ricochet, and a second interception that Rabbit Evans ripped out of receiver Charlie Williams' arms just before halftime.

Then the third quarter flipped the game on its head. Three plays after halftime, Colorado quarterback Isaac Wilson — starting against Utah, the program he left — dumped a pass to JaQuail Smith, who ran it 68 yards for a touchdown, surpassing Colorado's entire first-half yardage on one play. DeKalon Taylor's touchdown run put the Buffaloes ahead 14-13, and after Naeten Mitchell intercepted a scrambling Dampier, Elliott Arnold's 32-yard field goal stretched the lead to 17-13: 17 unanswered points, and Folsom Field believing. Dampier answered the way quarterbacks of unbeaten teams have to. Two huge third-down throws on the next drive, including a 43-yarder to Creed Whittemore, set up a 16-yard touchdown pass to Braden Pegan that put Utah back in front 20-17, and after Wilson threw his second interception of the night with 5:09 left in the fourth, Dampier found Pegan again, from six yards, three plays later. 27-17, 3:46 to play.

Colorado still was not finished. After the two-minute warning, Wilson hit DeAndre Moore Jr. for 48 yards and then for a 2-yard touchdown with 1:24 left to make it 27-24. Utah then mismanaged its final possession — passing on third-and-12 instead of draining the clock — and punted the Buffaloes down to their own nine-yard line with 56 seconds left, needing a field goal to force overtime. Wilson drove Colorado to the Utah 45 before his final pass, intended for Joseph Williams, fell incomplete as time expired. Final numbers from the scoring summary: Dampier threw three touchdown passes, two of them to Pegan; Wilson threw two touchdowns and two interceptions against his former team. Utah moves to 6-0 and stays on a collision course with BYU on November 7; Colorado falls to 2-4 with a fourth straight loss, a 2-8 record against ranked teams under Deion Sanders stretching back through last season, and a trip to Oklahoma State next.

Wake Forest 41, California 7: a blowout in Berkeley

There was no such drama three time zones west. Wake Forest led 14-0 after a quarter, 34-0 at halftime — Cal's biggest halftime deficit since trailing 41-3 at Oregon in 2013, according to Sports Illustrated's Cal coverage — and 41-0 before the Bears scored their only points in the fourth quarter. Lopez was 11 of 17 for 246 yards and three touchdowns by halftime alone, averaging 22.4 yards per completion; he added his fourth touchdown pass in the third quarter, a 2-yarder that was his third scoring throw to Barry on the night. The sequence that summed up the evening came just before halftime: Cal turned the ball over on downs at the Wake Forest 4-yard line, and the Demon Deacons went 96 yards in seven plays, Lopez hitting Barry for a 30-yard touchdown as the half expired, with the Bears booed off their own field.

The final statistics from Sportradar's box score were as lopsided as the score: Wake Forest outgained Cal 509 yards to 266, averaging 8.2 yards per play to Cal's 3.9, and ran for 220 yards while holding the Bears to 75. Neither team turned the ball over; Wake Forest simply moved the ball at will and Cal, which started quarterback Brousseau and only turned to Sagapolutele once the score reached 41-0, never found any rhythm at all. The win keeps No. 21 Wake Forest rolling through the middle of its schedule; for Cal, a home night game that was supposed to be a measuring stick became the low point of the season, at home, in prime time on the West Coast. For the night's biggest result out west, see our report on BYU's 28-24 upset of Notre Dame in Provo and the rest of the overnight file.