The one common denominator is Kyle Whittingham

Totally agree. The way I see it, is despite our struggles on offense, Kyle is a phenomenal defensive coach. And because we have had a reliably great defense during his tenure, we could count on reliably being a good team. The problem is defense can only take you so far. So while we have been consistently good under Kyle, it’s been infrequent that we’ve been great. The 2009 sugar bowl team was a great team. Winning the rose bowl twice? Those were great teams too, which as Cam was a primary driver of those teams, I still think it was the right choice to have rolled the dice on Cam this year too (but just too bad it didn’t work out).

But, all good things have to come to an end. Kyle has openly talked about wanting to retire for a while. And now that this season is on track to be the biggest underperformance in Utah history (expected to be in the playoff at the beginning of the season, now it feels like we would be fortunate to become bowl eligible), combined with a frustrating year last year, I think it’s ok for fans to feel like it’s time to move on from Kyle. At best Kyle is only with us for a few more years anyway, so why not let Scalley take a crack at turning this thing around?

That said, independent of what we think, Kyle is not going to be pushed out this season. It’s going to be his choice whether he comes back for next year or not. But either way, I’m grateful for the stability he brought our team over an extended period of time.

Outside of Oregon, maybe Washington all the old Pac schools would love to have Whitt join them. Same for the Big 12 schools. We have watched Pac teams with greater resources than Utah envy Utah’s success while failing to catch us despite turning over coaching staffs. Schools with winning teams hoping to contend for the championship learned that a step back is just as likely as a step up despite the expenditure of significant resources. Utah and Whitt have had uncommon success for a new P5 program due in part to consistency and focus on brick by brick building rather than rebuild rinse and repeat. No doubt there are teams ahead of Utah in the pecking order and the possibility exists that Utah can catch even greater lightning in a bottle the very next time we reset coaching.

One strategy would be aggressively demanding ever greater success every year without periods of setback. Funding for this can be quite difficult to find and maintain. Some programs like Washington pull it off so the question can Utah do the same comes up. Myself, I am not at all aware of the brutal facts related to the reality of what is available and possible to the Utah program. I expect that pushing for a strategy without any knowledge of the resources is very risky.

A year filled with great expectations that does not deliver is crushing to a fan base. Management of the plan going forward is tough no doubt. Myself, I am not off the Whitt train and hope it continues. I simply see contending for the Big 12 as more likely with Whitt than with a reset. But then, I was also one of the last to be shook off the Rick Majerus train.

You are right Charlie.

Ah Rick Majerus- it took us a few years to get back to elite basketball. Oh yeah, we are still waiting and Maj left 20 years ago. I arrived to the NIT game vs Iowa a few minutes late and they gave our whole extended family tiks for free because the Hunty was empty. Someone in my family was excited to see Caitlyn Clark play and was a little disappointed to see dudes out there. But it was a lot of fun and the price was right. Nothing says elite postseason basketball like an empty arena and free tiks. I made it onto the Jumbotron for crowd dancing!

As for football, Utah had been punching above its weight for a long time. No one outside of Utah thinks that Utah should be a blue-blood program. Utah is a small state with a fan base split between two relatively equivalent schools (sorry to point out the obvious but the Zoobs exist). Utah has virtually no natural advantage over our fellow 4 corner schools and very recently had a significant disadvantage as they were in elite conferences while we were in the MWC.

Then came PACmas and the relatively painful journey of improvement. Lots of genius fans called for Whitt’s firing during the back-to-back 5-7 years as we remember. He was an idiot and did not even want a good offense! But the university persevered and then Whitt became somewhat less stupid as the team won more games.

Then Whitt hired his old buddy Andy Ludwig again and the two of them became geniuses together winning the PAC 12 in back-to-back seasons. Success at previously unimaginable levels was amazing and thank goodness Whitt didn’t want to take the BYU job back in the day. Just imagine!

Then Whitt and Ludwig became idiots again and didn’t even want a good offense or a good QB any more. Thank goodness Ludwig left- the moron. There is no way the team could win anything with him making stupid decisions. Now we just need to get rid of the bumbling Whitt and we will be the best again because that is the natural order. We rule this truck-stop conference!

Do I have the story right?

To be fair, the HC is the common denominator for whatever happens on every team…and every HC can be seen has being the source of every issue if they are around long enough. Seems like the only way to avoid being the common denominator would be to leave halfway through the season.

None of which is a defense of Kyle’s decisions about Cam this year or last year or the current lack of depth we have at key areas. Just feeling like this specific argument isn’t exactly on point.

There isn’t an Urban Meyer waiting to come here. There isn’t a new Whitt ready to take over and dominate. If you want to believe MC will be fresh and better okay we can discuss that. But right now I’m dubious. Defense has always been our bread and butter under Whitt and we have always been streaky on Offense. But that was also true before Whitt and I think his leaving is more likely to lower our Defense than it is to raise our Offense. But that is just my opinion.