The one common denominator is Kyle Whittingham

[chinngiskhaan]

We all know some version of this statement has been said on Utehub many times over the years, especially over the last week or two. I would like to point out that this statement applies to more things than simply the tendency our offense has to struggle more than it should.

I would like to point out that he is also the one common denominator when it comes to the success of this program over the last 30 years. Since he was hired, we have won 252 games. In the 31 years prior to his hiring, we won 160 games.

While the idea that Whitt is the reason our team often struggles throwing the football may be true, it is also likely true that the reason the UofU football program has dramatically improved over the last 31 years is his presence on the staff.

Would I like to see him go? Yeah, probably, but only because I want to see what Scalley can do as HC.

[Roy Rangum]

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.

[chinngiskhaan]

“winning the rose bowl twice” Hate to be that guy, but we lost the Rose Bowl twice.

Otherwise, I agree with you. Like I said in my post, I’m fine with fans wanting him gone after this season, I agree with those fans.

The point of the post was simply to point out that while he may be the reason for offensive struggles, he is also the reason for overall success (especially on the defensive side of the ball), among other things.

[Roy Rangum]

Sorry, brain fart. I meant to say going to the rose bowl twice and conflated it with winning the Pac12 twice.

[2008 National Champ]

A recent parallel to the current Whitt situation would be Bill Snyder at Kansas State. He’d taken one of the worst programs in CFB and turned it into a consistent, well-regarded program. Occasionally made runs at being great but always better than most. The stadium was named after him, his contract made him coach for life (or as close to life as he wanted it to be) and also allowed him to name his successor.

Snyder’s teams predictably started falling in performance but his previous success had tied the school to a sinking ship to the point where Snyder was hanging on long enough so that his son would take over the program when he stepped down, while Snyder would still draw a salary as a “program adviser”. In essence, the man had become more important than the program.

It took firing the son, rewriting contracts, forcing Snyder out and a couple of bad years. Now they have Kleiman (sic?), have made NY6 bowls and are yearly in contention for the same or more than they were under Snyder. My point is that if you tie your future to the past, you will eventually rot from within. And unfortunately, most are not willing to recognize that rot until you have to tear it down to the studs.

[SalUteopia]

And how did the guy who replaced Snyder after his first do?

[2008 National Champ]

I think you mean the Ron Prince years of 2006 – 2008. For context, Snyder went 4-7, 5-6 in ’04/’05. Which was well down from exactly 11 wins in 6 of the 7 years from 1997-2003. I was living in Kansas at the time and can personally attest that local sports radio was calling for Snyder’s head. Prince then went 7-6, 5-7, 5-7 which got him fired. Snyder came back in 2009 and put up 6-6, 7-6 before hitting double digits again.

If the question is whether Snyder would have done better in those 3 years than Prince, no one can answer that. We can only say that he did not make the program worse than Snyder’s last two and first two back. That’s the problem with binary decisions. You can only evaluate one probability.

To tie back in to Whitt, I think it comes down to a multi-year proposition v next year. If I told you Whitt would most likely go 8-4 the next 3 years, but if replaced immediately his successor would go 5-7, 7-5, 12-0. Which would you rather have? That’s the calculus Harlan needs to be taking into account. Is staying with Whiit now the best course for the school or is it just delaying a decision that would have to be made eventually? Because if 2 years below Whitt’s average is what is required to get to better than ever no matter when the change is made, why not make it now instead of kicking the can down the road?

[SalUteopia]

Since you cited 3 Prince seasons, it is only fair we apply the same to Snyder – who went 11-4 with a conf championship and NY6 appearance in his 3rd-last season.
And the hypothetical Utah successor who could go 12-0 in this 3rd season.. what if I told you he goes 0-12, 4-8, 5-7 his next 3 seasons?
We can keep doing this all day long 😬

Coming back to Whitt – our opinions on the matter apart, Scalley will likely be the next HC. So it becomes more about the transition than finding the next Urban. And even if we conduct a national search, we could still end up with a Napier, Harsin, Pry, etc., so it’s a crapshoot either way.

[2008 National Champ]

I cited Prince based on what I thought your previous post was referring to: what happened with the coach who took over the first time Snyder stepped down?

Yes, anything other than what happens is speculation. And anything that might happen in the future is based on subjective probability and nothing more.

I feel like I keep having to repeat myself: I’m not calling for Whitt to be forced to step down or be fired. I’m just commenting on when would be the right time for something everything thinks will eventually happen to take place. Which I hope will be at the optimum point in time where Utah does not have to experience a few down years before making a change and then a couple more down years before getting back to the current level, if they ever do, with a different coach.

There are very few comps for Whitt over the last 50 years. Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno stayed too long. Many at K-State would argue Snyder did also. Ferentz was following the Snyder path in regards to his son, maybe he turns it around, maybe he doesn’t. Okie State is starting to make noise about Gundy whose only losing season was his first. Saban started 2 years after Whitt and decided to hang it up.

[SalUteopia]

I agree with your general sentiment. And I’m also not necessarily against Whitt leaving, but how and when the transition happens could be critical. We don’t have much room for error like USC, Florida, Auburn, etc.

[SalUteopia]

[duplicate post, hit the submit button twice]

[2008 National Champ]

weird that a duplicate post showed up an hour later

[Charlie]

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.

[Uteanooga]

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?

[Rick]

Uteanooga,
If I could give ten thumbs up I would.

[Charlie]

The story is right. Rick and Whitt have had both the best of times and the times that tried men’s soles. For me the guys that can get us to the top level even when it can’t be every year are more interesting than the guys that may be shiny but it is a roll of the dice to see if they can improve on the status quo. Those really consistent guys will almost always be rooted in programs above our level. I have been watching Nebraska playing today. That is a program that seemed never to leave the top 10 but after some change and with incredible resources have not found their way back to their former self for some time.

[RUUTES]

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.

[2008 National Champ]

Why can’t there be an Urban Meyer waiting to come to Utah?

If this board was around in 2000/2001, we’d be having the exact same conversations:

Ron McBride has taken Utah to places never thought possible
Ron McBride is the best that anyone can hope for
No on can come in and be better than what Ron McBride is right now

[Charlie]

There absolutely can be a Urban Meyer waiting to come to Utah. However, are the odds better or worse than 10%? We could take the chance and repeat until we find one. Would the chance of talking Urban into returning to Utah be better than finding another Urban? Could the odds of finding a quality OC be better than finding a better HC? Even with our below average OC history I think we can find one. I am curious about how many football championships are won by coaches that have been in place several years vs coaches that are new replacements. If we find the secret sauce we need to apply it to the BB program.

[Author]

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