Utah is #1

[2008 National Champ]

Finally the recognition this team truly deserves: Utah leads Misery Index after Week 12

“The main excuse for Utah’s problems, especially on offense, has been the absence of quarterback Cameron Rising, who suffered a hand injury in Week 2 and played just one game since before another season-ending injury. But here’s the problem with that. Rising has been in college since 2018. A combination of injuries and the extra COVID year has allowed him to extend his eligibility beyond anything that would be considered normal. He’s 25 years old for goodness sakes. If your entire program hinges on a guy who should have been out of college football long before now under normal circumstances, you haven’t done a very good job of building your team.“

[The Miami Ute]

I’ve often wondered on this site where Utah would be today if Cam Rising and Brant Kuithe had both played their last downs for Utah during the 2022 season. Whitt thought that he was stealing a march on the competition by sticking with them but it’s gone horribly wrong.

[2008 National Champ]

2023 exactly the same. 2024, probably not much different. Are we really convinced that if Rising was not going to be available this year that Whitt / Ludwig would have found a transfer QB not only ready to start on day 1 but that the offense would be tailored to the new QB’s skill set? Because Jake Bentley and Charlie Brewer would beg to differ.

[Anfernee]

Where’s Griff Robles when you need him?

[The Miami Ute]

Well, here he is: Griff Robles

[RustyShackleford]

That’s bad ass

[RUUTES]

Cam and Brant were both studs. Amazing talents. But yes if 2022 had been the end I think our focus on rebuilding would have been dramatically more effective.

[The Miami Ute]

I would even submit that 2023 would have been the rebuilding year and we would have reloaded before the start of this season. But you know, people, like water, prefer the path of least resistance.

[2008 National Champ]

I’m of the belief that with Rose, Barnes & Johnson, the staff thought they could get through 2023 without Rising if necessary. And from the small sample size of Rose this year, I can see that logic even if I still feel like bringing in a solid QB like Graham Mertz would have been a nice insurance policy. Let’s not forget that Barnes & Johnson were fighting to see who would not be the scout team QB in camp instead of QB1.

2024 was always going to be doomed to failure at the first sign of a Rising injury. It’s resulting to blame it on that happening in week 2 but this losing streak was always in the realm of probability based on roster construction. And Whitt needs to own all of his bad decisions as much as he gets credit for all of the good ones he’s made in the last 20 years.

[chinngiskhaan]

When I suggested we move on from Cam after the 2nd Rose Bowl loss I got flamed. I suggested then that it would be better for health of the program to move on.

[UTE98]

Many will disagree, but I think the loss of JJ is a much bigger factor to Utah’s season this year. We haven’t had a Alex Smith, Brian Johnson, Scott Mitchell in our Pac-12 days, we’ve had some good QBs but IMO nobody as good as them. What has always made Utah go is our RBs. After Kiel McDonald left the RB room as a whole has gone downhill. Love Q, and it may not be his doing, but I firmly believe our RB room is problem #1.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, all you have to do is look at where Kiel McDonald is today to know he was a massive plus for Utah. I agree that if Utah had had a healthy JJ this entire season it would have made a discernable difference.

[Utah]

I’ve said this all year long. If Whitt would have given Rising’s money to Jackson, let Rising walk, and gone with Rose/Wilson but had Jackson/Bernard as his RB’s, we’d be undefeated right now.

Whitt does everything he can to restrict QB’s. Why he let a RB like Jackson walk to pay Rising…blows my mind.

The problem with Whitt is he knows he needs to throw the ball to take the program to the next level; look at all the OC’s he has hired. But once a TO happens, he can’t bring himself to allow the QB to throw the ball and put his defense in a bad position. So he immediately shuts down the OC and goes back to the offense we’ve run forever.

Whitt would rather win 8-9 games a year and cash a check then take a risk to win it all.

[EagleMountainUte]

I said that exact same thing in January of….2023.

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