Going into this weekend’s Varsity Cup 1st round game against Air Force, the University of Utah team had to be wondering if they had bitten off more than they could chew.

In the last four weeks they’ve played St. Mary’s, UCLA, Army, Cal, and BYU, all competitive or achingly close losses, and then this week the Utes were under pressure from another opponent, the flu.

Much of the team has sick during the week and only just recovered in time to play. They were certainly not at their best.

“Air Force saw pretty quickly that we were a little slow to the breakdown,” said Utah Coach Jon Law. “So they did a really good job of disrupting our possession and pressuring us at the breakdown. Our players had very little left in the tank.”

But somehow, thanks in large part to their desire to empty the tank, and their quick strike capability, the Utes prevailed 36-31 over the Zoomies.

Taylor Thomas and Casey Raymond opened the scoring with tries for Utah, but Air Force replied with two of their own to tie it. Gabe Ruflin gave Utah the lead going into halftime, but Air Force replied just after the break. Once again Utah managed to explode for tries - centers Mason Hafen and Scott Strong raced over for tries and a two-tries lead for the Utes. But again Air Force stormed back, scoring two tries to tie the game 31-31.

It seemed that maybe it would all catch up to Utah.

“Air Force knows only one way to play and that’s a full 80 minutes,” said Law. “We had made some mistakes. We’ve been making errors that cost us points, and against we left tries unsecured. But somehow we got there.”

Led by Ruflin, who was a defensive monster and was named player of the game, and hooker Chad Gough, Utah’s Scholz Award Nominee - “there are players who can change games, and Chad is one of those guys. In everything he does, he changes the game” - they mounted one last attack.

With no time left, Taylor Thomas scored to win it for Utah 36-31.

It was a dramatic victory bolstered by a key tactical decision. At the beginning of the game, Utah won the coin toss and opted to go against the wind in the first half. The coaches thought their team might flag late, and so wanted to use the wind to player more territorially in the second period. It worked … just.

Utah now looks ahead to Central Washington in the second round of the Varsity Cup, and win or lose the next week they will also have a DIA playoff game (as does Air Force April 16).

Too much rugby? No way, said Law.

“We asked the players whether they wanted to play in two playoffs, and the team voted overwhelmingly to play both.”

Maybe Utah knows only one way to play - and that’s whenever they can, and whomever they can.