Utah junior safety Corrion Ballard’s biggest opponent in the first week of the season wasn’t necessarily North Dakota. It was keeping his mind on the game.
The 6-foot-3, 205-pound Ballard, who transferred from Blinn College in Texas last winter, prepared to make his first start for the Utes while his thoughts kept going back to his hometown of Houston being largely under water in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
“I had to work hard to try to keep my focus on the game because of the flood in Houston, but I think I was pretty locked in,” said Ballard, who made three tackles in the season-opening victory at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Estimates have said more than 100,000 homes sustained damage during the storm, which dropped more than 50 inches of rain, and the subsequent flooding.
While he stayed focus on the game, that doesn’t mean it was easy.
“People you care about going through something as tragic as Hurricane Harvey, you’re going to want to see how they’re doing,” Ballard said.
Ballard has been in touch with friends and family in Houston, and he’s happy to report they’re all okay. Ballard said he knows people who were evacuated as well as others who were able to stay with their homes. He said his family’s home survived the storm and the flood.
A legacy game
Utah senior co-captain and defensive tackle Filipo Mokofisi’s first memory of the BYU-Utah rivalry came in November 2003. That 3-0 victory for Utah clinched the Mountain West Conference title. Mokofisi watched that game in LaVell Edwards Stadium in such blistering cold that he was crying, but he said he has loved the rivalry ever since.
“It is a big deal, especially for me,” said Mokofisi, a Woods Cross High School graduate. “I know for some people it’s not any more, but for me it’s still a huge deal.”
Mokofisi’s father, Filipo Sr., played for the Utes from 1982 through 1985 and was an All-Western Athletic Conference linebacker. However, Filipo Sr.′s Utes teams went 0-4 against BYU, a fact that the younger Mokofisi said his father still doesn’t like to discuss.
Mokofisi, who has gone 3-0 in games against BYU (4-0 including a redshirt season), has also had two uncles as well as cousins who’ve played for the Utes. He said he started getting text messages from family about BYU right after the North Dakota game last Thursday.
Odds and ends
Utes coach Kyle Whittingham said linebacker Kavika Luafatasaga, who sustained a leg injury against North Dakota, did not suffer a season-ending injury. Whittingham did not elaborate on the injury or give a timetable for a return. Luafatasaga, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound senior, started Thursday’s season-opening win. However, he came out of the game due to injury and finished the contest with his foot in a protective boot. … Wide receiver Darren Carrington II, a graduate transfer from Oregon, said he expects “a lot of hatred” heading into his first game of this BYU-Utah. Carrington said he’d already seen some “hating” directed toward him through social media. “I just got here. They definitely added more fuel to my fire for this rivalry. I just can’t wait to play this game.” … Utes sophomore quarterback Tyler Huntley provided what will likely serve as fodder for riled up BYU fans when asked about the meaning of the rivalry. “Like Coach Whitt said, we don’t lose to those people down South, so we’ve got to come out and win.”