The Utah vs BYU Coaching difference

[Roy Rangum]

BYU’s sudden rise and Utahs death spiral honestly didn’t make sense to me until I realized a few key differences between our programs:

When BYU was struggling in 2022, Sitake finally made the hard decision to get rid of Tuiaki (I know that Tuiaki “resigned”, but we all know what that means), and then Sitake hired an excellent replacement in Jay Hill. I was talking to someone familiar with BYU’s program, and he reminded me that I had forgotten that Gary Anderson is also consulting for BYU this year (as Hill and Anderson are close). While I know that Anderson has his own issues, he also is a guy that knows football.

In contrast, while Utah’s coaching appears to have nose dived out of nowhere (as the theme of our last 4 losses, is we were just out coached), the truth is Whittingham has been building to this collapse for a long time. He burned through so many offensive coordinators that Ludwig was legitimately Whitts last real option, and then the Cam Rising saga broke the camels back.

And there is the difference between an 8-0 vs 4-4 team. Sitake was able to surround himself with multiple excellent coaches. In contrast, Whittingham has so thoroughly burned bridge’s with prior offensive coaches, that we now have an offense that can’t even find points against some of the worst teams in the Big12. And the worst part is I don’t see how Whitt can fix this. No offensive coordinator worth their salt will ever want to work for him.

I love Whitt and I love that he produced decades of stellar defenses that turned Utah into a consistent contender. And while we managed to find a few good offenses along the way to match our defense (which produced some stellar teams), I don’t see a viable path forward for Whitt to fix this.

The difference between Utah and BYU right now is coaching.

[Ute Dub]

Ludwig had a top 2 conference running back every year except this year, where Utah is 10th. Utah was top 2 in 2018 to 2022, not including 2021. Fell to 3rd in 2023. We just don’t have the dudes to run the rock. Granted, Ludwig wasn’t with Utah in 2018, but he was with Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt led the SEC in rushing.

[Roy Rangum]

Whitt’s offensive shortcomings started long before Ludwig came back to Utah. Ludwig was just Whitts last chance at producing a decent offense (which in the Cam years, were pretty good offenses). And while it’s true that we’ve had a disappointing RB room this year, I’m not sure that’s entirely on the RB’s. And we’ve also had more receiving talent than we have had in a long time. I think our offense has just as much talent as any of the last 4 teams we lost to. We just didn’t have coaches capable of using it.

[Ute Dub]

38 and 36 ppg with Ludwig in 21 and 22 were pretty good. They had a strong running back both years

[pedro]

Lud was here for 5 years. That’s hardly burning through. The others we’ve lost (RB Coach, WR coach) all left for more money except one three years ago when the WR weren’t producing.

[Roy Rangum]

You don’t remember the years before Ludwig? There’s a reason Whitt said Ludwig would be the last offensive coordinator he ever hired when he hired him

[Utah#1]

That is the very thing I noticed this year alone. Sitake was on the hot seat, but decided to hire some former Ute assistance under Kyle Whitt and allowed them, IMO, to do their jobs and trust them without looking over their shoulders and being a control freak. Whitt is a control freak and IMO interfered in the offense causing sub par performance during his coaching tenure hurting the football program’s ability to have very good to stellar offenses. I believe him stick around and coaching another year or two will only drive the program further into oblivion and ruining whatever chance the program has to build back better. Go UTES!

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