Utah had an overall losing conference record the first 8 years of playing in the P12. 2019 was the first year Utah got over the hump to an overall P12 winning record. Utah’s conference record the first 10 years in the P12 2011-2020 (counting covid year, 3-2) is 45-41. Makes sense KW dumped all his chips on Rising after the 2021 and 2022 P12 championship seasons. KW can blame it on injuries, NIL, etc. Bottom line is KW had two of his best seasons during the P12 and failed to build on that success heading to a 6-12 conference record over the past two years. KW could never overcome the limelight curse of getting his team to play as winners.
I hear the OC for that 2021 and 2022 team is available.
We’ve seen what it’s like having a potent offense at 38 PPG and a potent defense….see 2021 and TT’s 21 TD’s…that was a fun year.
The portal opens in less than a month and Utah currently hasn’t named an OC. Who that’s planning on entering the portal right now chooses Utah to come and play offense next year? At least prior to 2024 you could sell receivers on playing with Rising in an offense that had been top 15 in 2021/2022. Now? Every kid in the country can quickly pull up Utah’s stats and see that Singer, Pittman, Alford, etc had their pro prospects end once they put on a Utah uniform. Maybe not Singer but his time on the hill hasn’t enhanced his profile.
RB’s? How do you sell a kid on putting Moss into the league 5 years ago and nothing since?
A few upsets this week made Pick Em tougher to pick. joshsmith was alone at the top of the leader board with a 10-2 record this week. Nicely done. For the effort joshsmith wins a $25 Amazon gift card courtesy of Company Vitals and @UteBacker! Thanks for that.
Tao Johnson was a QB in high school. Surely you could come up with some option packages with him. Run it enough times and Singer will be open on the backside post. Essentially a stripped down version of what Oregon ran with Anthony Brown in 2021 that got them to the CCG before running into the Utah buzzsaw. But it should be enough to win 2 of the last 3 games if you absolutely had to. I mean, when the bar is set at around 17 points based on what the “real” QB’s have provided in conference play.,,
It certainly couldn’t be any worse than thinking Kendall Thompson was a legit D1 QB who could win you games.
correct. It’s the 5 highest ranked conference champions that get autobids with the four highest ranked getting byes. That guarantees a G5 but doesn’t limit it to only one.
It’s conceivable that a P4 school could lose 2 of their non-cons like Utah did in 2021, lose two more in conference but still qualify for their CCG. Then that 4 loss team wins the CCG. In the old model, the committee could still take TCU over 3 loss K State in 2022. Now the committee has to either take the 4 loss champ or decide if two G5 champs were more qualified.
In that scenario, the committee could still take the higher ranked P4 school that lost in the CCG as an at-large which would satisfy each of the P4 conferences getting at least one entrant while not having to award a 4 loss team a bye. And quite frankly, if you were the #6 or 5 seed, wouldn’t you love getting rewarded with a G5 in the 2nd round instead of a top P4?
This has to be more than just bad luck.
Below is a history of the RES field surface. Wonder if the practice facility is also “Vertex CORE FieldTurf”.
The stadium floor has also changed with the times. A Vertex CORE FieldTurf surface was installed in July of 2021, marking the fourth version of FieldTurf laid down in Rice-Eccles since 2002. Previous surfaces (dating back to Ute Field) were natural grass from 1927-71 and again in 2000-01, AstroTurf from 1972-95 and SportGrass from 1995-99.
Honestly I’m fully confident we can get a running back or two. I remember feeling hopeless about our RB room after Ty Jordan passed away but 2021 ended up being a good year for transfer RBs for us (Tavion, Pledger, Curry). we just need to be aggressive about going after them.
Unfortunately, Kuithe bet on himself and lost. His peak marketability was coming out after the 2021 season and catching on with a team that utilizes a tweener TE/WR as a mid to late round pick. Instead he came back to an OC who has tried to make him into a bigger, slower version of Britain Covey and has played the equivalent of one season out of the last 3. I just don’t see him catching on with anyone, especially since the most optimistic recovery time for another ACL would be after combine (which he won’t get invited to) and pro days.
Florida A&M @ 
Utah 
