Josh Newman on the status of Utah football

[ProudUte]

I agree with what Josh Newman wrote about the status of our football team.

Things have been far from bad for Utah through three weeks, but I agree with this notion that they’re not completely fine either.

Most of the trouble as I see it is the abundance of injuries, so to judge this team as currently presented is not entirely fair. On the flip side of that, well, this is the team playing at the moment, so maybe we should be judging it as such.

To believe a flip will switch when Rising comes back would be naive, but things will certainly get better with your best, most-capable player returning at the most-important position on the field. We have talked a lot about Rising returning at full health, but yeah, off knee surgery, returning as the same player he was is not a lock. That possibility has not been discussed enough.

Kuithe has not addressed the beat writers in, I believe, a year, before the knee injury. I listened to his ESPN 700 interview last week. You can take what he said there at face value, but you have to prepare for the possibility that the timeline drags on so long that maybe — MAYBE — the best course of action is to end his college career and prepare for the NFL.

My penciled-in, rough deadline for Kuithe to return before you start thinking about not returning at all is Halloween.

[2008 National Champ]

That sounds exactly like what some of us have been saying for months. Seems like it should have more downvotes

[The Miami Ute]

I’ve been saying for a few weeks that the last time we’ll see Kuithe in a Ute uniform was last year. I mean, we’re about to close out the first month of the football season and there’s been zero development on that front. Regarding the return of Rising, it’s a valid point to say that, whenever he returns, he won’t be the same effective QB that he was before the injury. It happens, especially just coming off an injury.

[ProudUte]

I hope for Rising’s future, that when he returns – he looks like he did against USC last October (prior to his first injury). I would like him to get a shot in the NFL. Regardless, he is a good man and has done a ton for Utah football. I will always be happy that he came to SLC.

[22Ute22]

I love Cam and Kuithe, but does anyone else feel like they might have screwed us over, especially Cam? There were a lot of quality QB’s in the transfer portal this past offseason, and him coming back/hesitating on his decision really held our coaching staff hostage on potentially getting a portal QB, and another portal TE. Let’s say we lose to UCLA and OSU without Cam, and when he comes back against Cal, he isn’t his former self, causing us to lose to USC, UO, and UW. We’d finish 7-5 due to not having a good, experienced QB, and it would be his fault for ruining a potentially special season.

Edit: Instead of downvoting, you should actually explain why I am wrong.

[EagleMountainUte]

There is more than one way of looking at things. I said in the off-season we should have given it to Rose or NJ. That was me seeing 2024 and 2025 as a huge opportunity. Especially in the big12 where it is my belief that a little Utah defense could bully its way to the CCG regularly.

I don’t think you ask Rising to walk though. Unless it is his decision. He is your two time P12 winner. Guy is a legend. I think you help make the best decision for him. I doubt transfer portal would have worked for him.

Utah has had a serious of unfortunate circumstances happen. I think we will calm down after fUCLA.

(I didn’t thumbs you down. Don’t worry about that anyways. You don’t win a prize for thumbs up).

[22Ute22]

Yeah, that’s kind of the point. Our coaches were never gonna tell him to hit the portal. So it was basically all on Cam on what our QB situation was going to be. Had he decided to just move on with his life, or potentially join the staff as an assistant, we could have gotten a portal QB.

[EagleMountainUte]

Yeah but you are saying from YOUR point of view that him “moving on” with his life wasn’t hanging around and trying to play more football for Utah.
Can you at least see how narrow your viewpoint is? It has a lot of nuance but you have a lot preconceived notions determining your viewpoint. Hence why people just thumbs you down. You don’t want to have a discussion you think you are right and refuse to see it any other way other than….Rising made it so transfer qb’s didn’t want to come here.

For the record transfer QB’s are very overrated. Statistically I think it is successful 25-30% of the time. So your solution isn’t exactly optimal. Especially considering Utah’s recent history. Huntley and Rising eventually replaced their transfers. I also know Rising was a transfer but he sat his ass down before taking over.

[2008 National Champ]

Considering that 10 of the 12 PAC starters are transfers (I’m including Rising), you might want to adjust your 25% success rate. And the other two are true freshmen.

[The Miami Ute]

And then there’s this:

The Transfer QB Era is Accelerating: Over 62% of projected Power 5 starters are transfers

Here’s the summary:

Here’s a list of programs who are projected to have a transfer starting quarterback this upcoming season. (Note: Unsettled quarterback battles are listed with **.)

Jordan Travis, Florida State
Garrett Shrader, Syracuse
Jack Plummer, Louisville
Phil Jurkovec, Pittsburgh
Tony Muskett, Virginia
Brennan Armstrong, NC State
Grant Wells, Virginia Tech**
Quinn Ewers, Texas
Chandler Morris, TCU
Dillon Gabriel, Oklahoma
Tyler Shough, Texas Tech
Donovan Smith, Houston
John Rhys Plumlee, UCF
Kedon Slovis, BYU
Alan Bowman, Oklahoma State
Emory Jones, Cincinnati
Tanner Mordecai, Wisconsin
Hudson Card, Purdue
Taulia Tagovailoa, Maryland
Cade McNamara, Iowa
Luke Altmyer, Illinois
Jeff Sims, Nebraska
Ben Bryant, Northwestern
Tayven Jackson, Indiana**
Caleb Williams, USC
Michael Penix, Washington
Bo Nix, Oregon
Cameron Rising, Utah
Cameron Ward, Washington State
Jayden de Laura, Arizona
DJ Uiagalelei, Oregon State
Ethan Garbers, UCLA**
Shedeur Sanders, Colorado
Drew Pyne, Arizona State**
Sam Jackson, Cal**
Jayden Daniels, LSU
Devin Leary, Kentucky
Spencer Rattler, South Carolina
Joe Milton, Tennessee
Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss**
Graham Mertz, Florida
Payton Thorne, Auburn**
Sam Hartman, Notre Dame

Here’s the breakdown of teams with a transfer starting quarterback by conference:

ACC: 7 of 14
Big 12: 9 of 14
Big Ten: 8 of 14
Pac-12: 11 of 12
SEC: 7 of 14

[SOWhat]

Ok, you think Cam is screwing the team and the coaching staff. Your premise I that Cam or Brant can decide when they can return. Nothing is further from the truth. When they can return is decided by the doctor who performs the surgery. That’s why there is so much speculation. They player and uninformed fans are perhaps more optimistic than they should be. Especially with knee surgery.
They will be back when the doctor okays it. And speculation that the players mentioned are intentionally screwing everyone over in disingenuous.

[22Ute22]

In talking about when Cam hesitated on coming back or declaring for the draft last December. Had he declared for the draft in early December, we would have 100% gone after a portal QB and would have gotten a quality one. Cam decided to come back after the rose bowl injury, but at that point, he didn’t really have much of a choice, and neither did our coaches. His chances at getting into the NFL this past draft were slim, but the probability was 0% coming of an ACL tear. When he finally decided to come back for one more season, all the good portal QB’s had already committed, and we weren’t gonna get one anyway.

[D T]

CR had already decided to come back BEFORE the RB.

[EagleMountainUte]

You have zero proof of a transfer qb being quality other than what you are formed in your own mind.

[22Ute22]

Right, but now we don’t even get the opportunity to see what could have been. I’m personally fine with having Nate Johnson, but it seems like our coaching staff doesn’t trust him much, considering that Whitt in the most recent press conference said that Nate is only allowed to run half the playbook at the moment.

[ProudUte]

I won’t give you a thumbs down or thumbs up for simply expressing your feelings.

I think the coaches believed that Cam and Brant would be back for the season. We had a QB rooms with top recruits. I would not have gone to the portal for a QB (that’s just me). Now, as far as the tight end position goes – I would have gone hard after Holker. I think Holker wanted to be the go-to tight end. When Kuithe decided to play another season – Holder ended up at CSU and is doing great there.

[The Miami Ute]

I don’t blame Cam and Kuithe at all. They’re just following their interest. That interest obviously aligned with Kyle’s vision for the team because they’re still here. Kyle could have easily said to both guys “thanks, but no thanks”, as many other coaches have in the past and will in the future, and moved on. However, he didn’t do that, possibly because it was the “easy button” in this type of situation. If there’s someone to blame, it should be Kyle and his staff. They should have wargamed the situation with both guys, especially considering the type of injuries they were, and come up with a Plan B in case either player was not able to contribute for most or all of the season. That Plan B could have included an experienced “one season rental” Portal QB. It’s what I would have done. Now, you’re stuck in a situation where you could conceivably have to play all or most of your schedule without either guy playing to their full capacity. To me, it’s just bad planning all around. Maybe other people on this site knew, but I had no idea that Cam had a torn ACL until it was publicly disclosed sometime in July. If I had known that in January when it happened, I would have advocated for bringing a guy from the portal and giving Cam a handshake and a pat on the back for his services. I know it sounds cold but, in a situation like that, it’s what you have to do to take care of your team.

[Rick]

Miami
To use your word – I absolutely believe Kyle and the staff “war-gamed” the situation. And I think it’s working out. They decided to let the talent in the room emerge while Cam rehabilitated his injury. While it hasn’t been pretty, Utah is 3-0 and Nate Johnson is getting valuable reps against strong competition (I include Weber). I do think UCLA is a tall task without Cam but if Nate takes a big step forward this week and we get a few players back, especially on the defensive line, we can get a home win against the Bruins. I love how this is working out for the present and future of Utah football.

If Cam can’t get back for two or three more games, we may lose at Oregon State or to someone else; but who’s to say a portal quarterback would do better than Nate Johnson at this point against the top half of the Pac-12?

I’m enjoying the ride and appreciative of the strong strategy and coaching of our staff.

[The Miami Ute]

Rick, the only important thing in competitive sports is the final result. So far, so good but if three weeks from now the Utes are 3-3, you will see a lot of people on this site making the same points I and others have made. Who’s to say a portal QB would do better than Nate Johnson? Don’t know the answer to that one but I can bet you a guy like Sam Hartman, Devin Leary, DJU, or even Kedon Slovis, etc.. wouldn’t be limited in their grasp of the playbook. All I’m saying is that if the Utes’ season takes a left turn once we start playing the PAC heavyweights, there’s going to be a lot of people complaining about the QB situation.

[Rick]

Fair enough Miami. I’m just sharing my perspective. Hopefully all of this back and forth is for naught and Cam comes back this week.

[22Ute22]

This and some of your other comments are exactly my point. People are flaming me for “hypothetical losses,” but NEWSFLASH, that is how hypotheticals work. It is not out of the realm of possibility that we lose to both UCLA and OSU without Cam. Did this forum forget the horrendous display of offense against a mediocre Baylor team? Baylor didn’t have the offense to put us away. UCLA and OSU, while not elite offenses like USC and UW, are far better than Baylor’s offense, and they also have better defense than Baylor. Yes, Barnes is no longer playing, but Nate still has some issues with reads and isn’t a finished, polished product. If UCLA doesn’t respect the pass and Whitt and Ludwig don’t let Nate air it out, we become a one-dimensional offense and will lose. Our defense is great, but it’s not 2011 Alabama.

As for QB’s that could have come, none of the guys you listed would have been interested except for MAYBE Slovis.

Sam Hartman was always going to ND. Notre Dame literally was tampering lol.

DJU wanted to go to OSU because he was guaranteed a starting spot and more importantly, he wanted to play near his little (younger, since Matayo is larger) brother.

I don’t think Leary was gonna ever come out west to play.

My pick would have been Spencer Sanders from Oklahoma State. He is a VERY similar player to Cam Rising. Good but not elite passer, and is a very good scrambler. He would have been the perfect fit, but now he is a backup in his final year of eligibility at Ole Miss, and we are without a big QB threat at the moment.

[The Miami Ute]

The QBs that I mentioned, I mentioned off the top of my head as examples of who was out there. I know for a fact that there were more than 20 experienced and talented QBs, Sanders was one of them. that came and went this past offseason. Surely Utah, the two time defending PAC champion, would have been seen as an attractive place for one of them. Anyways, it’s water under the bridge. We’re left with playing the hand we’ve been dealt now.

[Kirk Herbstreet]

No and its sorta dumb to suggest that he did/is. Cam is possibly the greatest Utah QB of all time or is at least in the conversation. If he wants to come back, you let him. We are 3-0 right now and getting the possible QB of the future reps and time.

Cam is and always has been the best chance at a special season/3-peat. Not a transfer QB. Looking at the QBs who transferred last year, none of them were going to come to Utah and exactly none of them were going to give us a better shot at a championship than any of the QBs we have now.

Even suggesting that Cam has “screwed” us is beyond disrespectful to a young man who has sacrificed his body, heart, and everything to bring us not 1 but 2 conference championships. It’s plain stupid.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, I think it’s beyond stupid to stake your season, which is a multi-million dollar operation, on the hope that a guy might or might not come back from a serious injury. That’s just plain dumb and makes the coaching staff look like they haven’t got a clue. As one poster wrote a while back and got unfairly lambasted for, this is not the University of Rising. You have to do what’s best for the collective and not one guy, no matter how much of a legend he might be. In addition, and this is what gets me, you do realize that not every athlete heals the same way and, even in this day and age, there are guys that don’t come back from ACL tears or other injuries, right? What if Cam is one of those guys? Then Utah just essentially wrote off the 2023 season because there’s zero chance that the Utes can compete for anything this year with a QB room composed of Johnson and Barnes.

[EagleMountainUte]

It is sort of University of Rising. He is a leader of these guys who have been through a lot. There are so many cons in having the coaches choose to dump him. Miami usually you and me agree a lot but this is crazy talk. You help Cam and show your other players what you do when they have a serious injury.

I was definitely on the let’s move on train but the way it is done needs to be considered. I would have been 100% behind Rising going to the NFL. Injury changed a lot of his plans but it isn’t a negative to Utah to be in this situation.

[The Miami Ute]

Eagle, in no way, shape or form was I advocating for Utah and Rising to go their separate ways. All I was saying is that if you know that your QB1 is recovering from a traumatic injury you cannot go into the season without having some sort of realistic QB insurance. I mean, we don’t even know if Rising is ever going to put on pads again in his life. This being Utah and the head coach being Kyle Whittingham, we could be in November and still receiving a steady dose of “feeling good, practicing with the team, getting my timing back, just waiting to be cleared by the doctors, etc…”. Anyways, you can’t call yourself a legit college football power and have no plan for the QB position other than use reserves and hope your QB1 comes back at some time during the season. Remember, Kyle and the staff knew immediately what the injury was and could have done something to mitigate the team’s exposure to a scenario where Rising is out for a significant portion of the season. I just look at the schedule and see all the PAC teams that have a star or experienced starter as the QB and wonder where the wins are going to come from. You can’t put it all on the defense.

[alUmnUs]

The coaching staff was not held hostage by Cam. That’s why you’re wrong (besides that, you just typed out this huge hypothetical that is not real).

[DataUte]

Even if Cam didn’t come back, I think the coaches would have gone with Rose or Johnson. I don’t think they would have necessarily tried to get a starter from the portal. Bentley and Brewer anyone? I think it spooked the process of getting a mercenary qb into the system we do. Maybe they look, but we are still old school and had 2 4* qbs to develop (whether or not you think we can develop a qb, the coaches do).

[Duhwayne]

Naive here but does Kuithe have a chance of being drafted with no tape since being taken off the field last year?

[The Miami Ute]

Kuithe had over four years of tape before he got injured. He was a significant contributor to the Utes’ offense starting from his Freshman year in 2018.

[2008 National Champ]

Kuithe’s chances of getting drafted at his peak were very small. Missing ~ 18 months would not help.

Covey came back, put two excellent years of tape together and didn’t get drafted. Yes it was mainly because of his measurables but Kuithe is in the same boat. He’s too small for an NFL TE and doesn’t block well enough. He doesn’t have enough speed for WR.

There are a ton of college kids who have great careers and never get a sniff from the pros. It doesn’t diminish their importance to their college teams. But when there’s probably an average of 5 spots available per team for rookies.., sometimes you have to be realistic when projecting.

[stbone]

I will be disappointed if this is the end of Kuithe’s career because, before he was injured, he was starting to show the kind of route-running/ability to create separation that I thought could have gotten him drafted despite his lack of measurables. The injury gods are particularly brutal, and Kuithe wouldn’t be the first to have a career derailed or delayed by an injury (Brandon Rose?), but it is never fun to see happen.

[The Miami Ute]

It actually runs in the Kuithe family. His twin brother, Blake, who’s now an analyst at Goldman Sachs, had to medically retire from football-related injuries.

[2008 National Champ]

Kuithe’s plan last year, which was endorsed by the coaches, was to play more slot and show that he had that skillset. The plan worked so well that Kincaid got drafted in the first round when he filled that role.

Since the original question was whether Kuithe had done enough that if he never played another down for Utah he could still get drafted, I’m in the no camp. If he took a medical redshirt this year and came back completely healthy in 2024, that would be a different question but I think it would be his best chance. Age becomes a factor but he would be able to prove that he had overcome the weaknesses from his draft report after 2021.

No matter what anyone on here thinks of Kuithe, if they were an NFL GM, there’s not a chance in hell they draft a guy who didn’t play for a year and a half. If he doesn’t play this year he’s not going to be invited to the combine so the only chance he has to impress would be at Utah’s pro day. I just don’t see the path.

[The Miami Ute]

If he takes a medical redshirt, he’ll be over 26 years of age by the time his NFL rookie season concludes. The only guys I’ve ever seen that were so old as rookies are a handful of academy grads who went to the NFL after the conclusion of their active duty. That will probably be a turn-off to a lot of teams but you only need one to believe in you.

[2008 National Champ]

I’m not saying it’s a good plan. Just hoping that the kid can make lemonade out of poodle p**s at this point.

I honestly don’t know how many games he could play this year and still get a medical. It used to be limited to one or two games before getting injured and you still had to wait until fall camp of the next year to get your waiver. So if his goal is the pros, he has to make sure that he can do everything he needs to on the field before getting into a game. If the only winning roll for him is boxcars, do everything necessary to stack the deck in your favor – can you tell I’m not a gambler from my mixed metaphors?

Edit: I can’t believe a common euphemism for urine wasn’t allowed. Might want to ease up on the censor algorithm.

[J Rocksville]

If he doesn’t have a great shot at the NFL, why not take the medical redshirt and come back to make a couple hundred k in NIL money?

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