GAME NOTES: Needing one more victory to become bowl eligible, the 19th-ranked Utah Utes welcome the Air Force Falcons to Salt Lake City for a Mountain West Conference showdown at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Utah, which fell into the 18th spot on the first BCS rankings of the season on Sunday, have lost only once this season after running the table in 2008 as the lone undefeated program among the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Since bowing to Oregon on the road by a touchdown back in the middle of September, the Utes have rattled off three straight wins and gotten themselves back into the Top-25.

Last weekend the team cruised past UNLV in Las Vegas, 35-15, which means the Utes are tied for second place in the MWC standings with TCU at 2-0, as both programs trail BYU heading into action this week. The win was also the 600th for the program all-time.

Meanwhile, the Falcons have played more league bouts than any school and have three wins in four tries to show for their efforts. That single defeat was actually rather impressive, given that it was just three points (20-17) versus nationally-ranked TCU at home a few weeks ago.

More recently, the academy snapped a two-game slide by posting a 10-0 shutout versus Wyoming at home last Saturday. It was the second shutout of the season for the Falcons and their first versus a conference opponent since the team blanked Colorado State 24-0 back in 1997.

The academy played Utah rather close last season before falling in a 30-23 to the lone undefeated team in the nation a season ago. Air Force maintains a 14-11 edge in the all-time series, although Utah has won five of the last six meetings. An encouraging stat for the Falcons is that they have played Utah to within eight points in five of the last six games, just three points in three outings.

The offense for the Falcons didn't exactly blow the doors off Wyoming last week, but it played just well enough to earn the victory nonetheless.

"[Our offense] certainly should have been better, but [Wyoming's defense] had something to do with that," Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun said after last week's outing. "They have good size up front. I thought we had a chance on two play-action passes, one in the first half, one in the second half, and we missed both."

Running back Jared Tew ran for a 17-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter and finished with a season-high 105 yards on 27 attempts. Strangely enough, for a team that is fourth in the nation this year in rushing with 279.3 ypg, Tew was the first player to eclipse the 100-yard mark for the Falcons in seven games this season. The squad as a whole generated 267 yards on the ground on 69 attempts, while Tim Jefferson had the lone successful pass for the group, a two-yard effort to Chaz Demerath.

Coming up strong was the Air Force defense, a unit that limited Wyoming to just 4-of-16 on third down and allowed the visitors just 74 yards passing and 174 yards overall. Reggie Rembert, who had one of the team's six sacks, was credited with a team-best 10 tackles.

"Today, we just played magnificent defense," coach Calhoun remarked of the unit's efforts. "We didn't create enough scoring opportunities. Sometimes you have to take advantage of it. Today we didn't create enough, because we didn't make nearly enough first downs, especially in the first half. We moved the ball a little better in the second half. But the defense played really well."

While their record might not reflect the effort, the Falcons actually have the top scoring defense in the MWC, ranked seventh in the nation, with just 11.9 ppg allowed. Certainly, the shutouts versus Wyoming and Nicholls State play a huge part in that stat, yet no opponent has managed more than 20 points against Air Force this season. The pass defense is permitting just 139.1 ypg, fourth-best in the entire country, while the run defense surrenders 127.6 ypg.

As has been the case for several years now with the Falcons, the passing game is almost nowhere to be found, averaging a scant 66.9 ypg, ranking the squad second-to-last in the nation. Obviously the job of both Jefferson and Dietz is to facilitate the ground attack on the triple-option and still defenses can't always figure out how to defend that.

Terrance Cain had a decent outing against UNLV last week as he converted 17- of-24 passes for 174 yards and two touchdowns, managing to avoid pressure in the pocket and suffering just a single sack. Cain also was credited with eight rushing attempts for 22 yards and a score, his yardage second only to Eddie Wide who generated a game-best 111 yards and scored once on his 17 attempts.

Utah was able to cause quite a bit of damage even though the squad controlled the ball for barely 25 minutes in Las Vegas.

The defense surrendered 23 first downs and 327 yards of total offense to the Rebels, the same number of yards the Utes themselves piled up. However, the difference between the two was that UNLV ran 25 more offensive plays, which means Utah limited the home team to a mere 4.1 yards per snap. Robert Johnson gave the defense a huge lift as he picked off a UNLV pass and returned a fumbled interception 70 yards to the end zone for a score.

"Our red zone production was very good on both sides of the ball," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said after the matchup with UNLV. "We were 3-for-3 in touchdowns in the red zone. UNLV had just one touchdown in five trips to the red zone. That played a major difference in the game. We also scored a touchdown on defense with Robert Johnson's interception return on the fumble."

The pass defense has been picking up the pieces for the Utes this season and now ranks first in the Mountain West and eighth in the nation with a rating of 95.05. In terms of passing yards allowed, the Utes have given up just 176.5 ypg and that ranks them third in the league and 24th nationally heading into action this week.

Cain, who suffered a minor ankle injury in the first half of the UNLV game, has been growing ever since he was named the starter and now accounts for a sizeable 273.2 ypg in total offense, a number that places him second in the league and 18th in the country right now.

"If we singled out one guy the last few weeks who had the biggest impact, it would be RoJo (Robert Johnson)," notes coach Whittingham. "He is playing his best football as a Ute. He has always been solid and been a big play guy, but now he is playing a complete game."

Johnson is one of the nation's leaders with his five interceptions and has a pair of fumble recoveries, not to mention he is fifth on the team in tackles with 26 through six games.

"Air Force is a solid football team,"recognizes coach Whittingham. "They have done some good things on defense this year. They are at or near the top of most defensive categories in the conference and are leading the nation in turnover margin. It's a great conference battle. Games with Air Force have gone down to the wire and we don't expect anything other than a competitive football game."

While the game might be another close one, expect Utah to have the strength of the hometown crowd behind it as it picks up win number 601 this weekend.