Tanner Lewis Missed One Throw All Day. Orem Didn't Need a Fourth Quarter.

I watched Tanner Lewis throw 16 passes at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Friday afternoon. Fifteen of them ended up in the hands of somebody wearing an Orem jersey.

That's Orem 56, Woods Cross 10 in the Utah 5A semifinals, and it's most of the story. The Tigers scored on eight of their nine possessions, never punted, and the game was over after three quarters. The defending 5A champion is back in the title game.

Orem's eight-second drive

Orem took the opening kickoff and went 80 yards in six plays. It took a minute and 31 seconds, and Lewis capped it with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Po Faumui.

Then Woods Cross showed us what it does. The Wildcats run the old stuff, wishbone and veer, dive and pitch, and I'll admit it's fun to see in 2026. They moved it a little. Then they went for it on fourth and 1 near their own 40, ran the dive, and Orem stuffed it.

One snap later it was 14-0. Lewis hit No. 13, also named Lewis, for 40 yards and a touchdown. That drive took eight seconds.

Read that last row again. Woods Cross had the ball for more than twice as long and lost by 46.

Woods Cross got its punch in

The Wildcats didn't fold early. They answered with a 13-play, 65-yard drive that ate 5:45 and ended in a 32-yard field goal.

Then Orem fumbled at its own 25, and Woods Cross cashed it in. Teiyon Halbasch scored from a yard out with 38 seconds left in the first quarter, and suddenly it was 14-10. For about a minute, this felt like a ballgame.

This Woods Cross team went 4-6 in the regular season, came in as the No. 14 seed, and won two road playoff games to get here, at Box Elder in overtime and at Alta. It was the program's first semifinal under coach Brody Benson, who's in his sixth season. Nobody gets here by accident.

The second quarter went sideways

Orem scored four touchdowns in the second quarter, and none of the drives took longer than 2:17.

Brooks Ross caught a 30-yard touchdown. Beckham Curtis ran one in from 14 yards out after a Woods Cross punt. Orem added a 13-yard touchdown run, where the ball carrier went straight through a tackler at the 5 on his way in. Then Curtis took a swing pass 21 yards for a score with 45 seconds left in the half.

Halftime: 42-10.

Ross is the one I couldn't take my eyes off. He finished with five catches for 120 yards, a 48-yarder among them, plus 47 yards on two punt returns, and he nearly took one of those to the house before running into his own blocker. He looked like the fastest player on the field, and it wasn't close.

Why the wishbone couldn't keep up

You could see the size gap in pregame warmups, and it wasn't subtle. An option offense is supposed to close that difference with timing, getting a defense leaning the wrong way before it ever touches the ball carrier.

Watching Woods Cross took me back to De La Salle in Concord, California, which I've seen run its version of this offense live more times than I can count. The Spartans play games with the snap. They vary how long the hands stay in the dirt, and they push the one-second set to something closer to half a second, which isn't allowed. They do it in unison and they do it constantly, and I've never once seen it called.

That's not a knock. De La Salle is still the best option team in the country and a program I have a lot of respect for. It is what it is.

It also isn't a fair comparison. De La Salle's linemen are as big as Orem's, or bigger. Woods Cross was the underdog trying to win with timing alone, and there was something nostalgic about watching a team play that style anyway. It just didn't have that kind of snap on Friday.

The backs ran hard. Sam Bahr carried 17 times for 50 yards, and the Wildcats ran it 44 times for 148. But too many of those runs bounced outside against a defense that was faster than them laterally. One more cut inside and a couple of those turn into chunk plays. Instead they turned into third and long.

You can grind a clock with this offense. You can't grind a 32-point lead.

Then it ended

Faumui caught his second touchdown, a 3-yard pass in the flat, early in the third. Woods Cross fumbled at midfield on its next drive, and Orem punched in a 9-yard run three plays later. The Tigers intercepted a pass on the last snap of the third quarter, and with a 46-point lead, that was the game.

Lewis threw five touchdown passes. Faumui caught two, and Curtis scored twice. Orem went 4 for 4 in the red zone, every one a touchdown. The Deseret News' Parry's Power Guide had Orem by 26. It missed by 20.

West is waiting

Earlier in the day, West beat Bountiful 29-12 in the other semifinal. I watched that one too. West pushed Bountiful around physically for most of the morning. Orem did the same thing to Woods Cross, only cleaner.

So it's West and Orem for the 5A title, next week at Rice-Eccles. Finally, two teams that match up physically.

West gets a week to figure out how to make Tanner Lewis miss twice.