SALT LAKE CITY - The national college football darlings came back down to earth, but fought it every step of the way.

There was no letdown after the improbable upset last week. It was a good showing, just not good enough.

The Oregon State football team was on the verge of another upset Thursday night before the win was snatched away in the final second.

Louie Sakoda won the game with a 37-yard field goal as time ran out as No. 15 Utah defeated the Beavers 31-28 before a crowd of 45,599 in Rice-Eccles Stadium.

"I thought it was a great football game," coach Mike Riley said. "Both teams were going back-and-forth and playing hard. I thought we would have enough to win the game at the end, and obviously we did not."

The dramatic victory sent the Utah student body to midfield for a dance similar to what the Beavers experienced last week after the victory over then-No. 1 Southern California.

Utah's triumph was a major hurdle for the Mountain West Conference team to prove its worth as a Bowl Championship Series-caliber team, so the celebration was warranted.

"We really just showed a lot of resiliency and we did a great job of handling adversity," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "We had our backs to the wall, and we just made plays."

The Beavers (2-3) didn't overlook the Utes (6-0) after beating USC. And they didn't come in playing nervous.

OSU delivered a steady effort on offense and defense. The team improved much of the night on both sides of the ball.

"It was another heartbreaker," quarterback Lyle Moevao said. "It feels like Stanford all over again. Once again we made mistakes early on that cost us the game."

Mistakes included Moevao's fumble in the second quarter that led to an easy Utah touchdown. The Beavers were in a 13-point hole at that point and had to rally in the second half.

The special teams had issues on kickoff coverage and in the kicking game. A missed field goal and extra point were the difference between a victory and defeat.

"I'm really disappointed in the loss," Riley said. "This would have been a fantastic win. But I give them a lot of credit. They are a great team. But, we'll look back at 20 plays in this game. There were too many opportunities to have a couple more points."

OSU still nearly overcame their setbacks.

The offensive line didn't control the line of scrimmage so the running game didn't get on track. Running back Jacquizz Rodgers ran for 101 yards on 25 carries, but it was hard going. One play accounted for 33 of those yards.

Moevao had more trouble than usual from the defensive pressure. He was sacked three times and had four passes batted down by defensive linemen.

Still, the offense gained 405 yards and moved the ball. Moevao passed for 313 yards and threw TD passes to Brady Camp and Shane Morales.

"I think it was a terrific game," Riley said. "I'm really proud of our team. We made a lot of mistakes. We tried to overcome them with a lot of good effort and good play. I'm proud of that."

The defense had trouble with Utah's outside running in the first half, but they adapted to contain the Utes in the second half.

The pass rush and coverage just softened up in the final minutes, which led to the game-tying and game-winning drives.

"It's a tough loss for us," defensive end Slade Norris said. "We gave it our all, and they came out and made plays at the end when they needed to. I give all the credit to them. I don't know what happened. We were playing a great game. We had to make plays at the end, and we didn't do that."

Cliff Kirkpatrick covers the Oregon State football team for the Corvallis Gazette-Times. He can be reached at cliff.kirkpatrick@lee.net.