Estimated read time: 10-11 minutes
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SALT LAKE CITY — The regular season is rapidly coming to a close at Utah. Once that happens following Colorado's visit on Nov. 25, personnel matters will take center stage, and anyone here paying attention knows what the No. 1 personnel topic will be.
Assuming the NCAA grants Cam Rising a medical redshirt and an accompanying seventh year of eligibility, whatever he chooses to do with it will have a profound effect, not only on what the Utes look like going into the Big 12 in 2024, but maybe what they're capable of in Year 1 of playing in a new league.
We're going to start this Utes mailbag right there.
Q: "Assuming Cam isn't coming back next year, does Utah have a team to win the Big 12 next season?" - @MrSmokinUte
First, a qualifier.
As I sit here writing this on Wednesday, it is increasingly sounding through back channels like whatever NIL stuff had to get straightened out has been straightened out, or is at least very close to the finish line, so Rising returning to Utah in 2024 for a seventh year has now been installed as the favorite among the various scenarios in play.
In fairness, nothing has been made official, and certainly nothing has been announced, so for now, the possibility exists that minds change and things go sideways.
To that, I think the possibility of Rising taking his medical redshirt and accompanying seventh year of eligibility elsewhere needs to at least be explored, because if that were to happen, it would be quite damaging for Utah.
If Rising does not return in 2024, no, Utah cannot win the Big 12. It's not as simple as just that statement, but if you take Rising out of the mix, there is not enough currently in that QB room to make you believe the Utes can walk into a new conference and win it right out of the gate.
Brandon Rose has never taken a collegiate snap. I will leave this season believing we have not seen enough of Nate Johnson, nor has he been given a fair-enough shake to determine if he is the long-term guy.
Nobody believes at this moment that Mack Howard can break through next fall as a redshirt freshman. Isaac Wilson is facing offseason knee surgery, and even if he's back in a reasonable amount of time and ready, it's tough to see a true freshman ascending to QB1 unless that true freshman blows you away. I don't see it.
Barring someone transferring, which is always a possibility, those are your in-house options. If Rising leaves, that is not enough to go into the Big 12 with. If Rising leaves, Kyle Whittingham needs to go into the transfer portal and come out with a veteran, accomplished, decisive option who you can get lined up as your potential starter on Aug. 29 vs. Southern Utah.
In a perfect world, Rising makes his intentions known to Whittingham sooner than later. The 30-day transfer portal window opens Dec. 4, the day after Selection Sunday.
From there, things around the country are going to move quickly. If Rising is not coming back, Whittingham needs to figure it out ASAP because, news flash, Utah is not the only program that will need a quarterback. If Rising drags this thing out, then opts to not return, it's going to be a problem.
On topic, those of you believing Utah and Rising should part ways are absolutely wrong. And yeah, I understand the hassle this season was, but if your seventh-year guy wants to come back to work with the same offensive coordinator for a sixth year, you roll out the red carpet. It's not even a discussion.
Q: "The question that has been spinning in my mind all season is, is Andy Ludwig really the best we can do? There are times he seems so out of touch with what's happening on the field. That halfback dive on third-and-10 was a good example." - @StevenSeril
I've received this stuff a lot, first in September when the QB situation and offense as a whole were a mess, and now again after Washington, where the play-calling in the second half left something to be desired.
We can all agree that Ludwig had a bad second half in Seattle. I thought Utah, after a terrific first half, got less aggressive, more predictable, and as the Huskies made adjustments, I thought the Utes did a bad job of responding.
Fine, now that the shortcomings at Washington are out of the way, can we please get real?
If you're bold enough to call for Ludwig's job, you're going to have to give me a replacement and, not only are you going to have to give me a replacement, you're going to have to come up with one better than Ludwig and willing/wanting to coach at the University of Utah.
Can Utah do better than Ludwig? My initial reaction is well, no, and I say that because Ludwig has been pretty dang good in his second tour of duty as the offensive coordinator under Kyle Whittingham.
To help make my point, here are some raw numbers Ludwig has helped produce since coming back here in 2019. I skipped the five-game 2020 COVID season.
Total offense
- 2019: No. 5 Pac-12, No. 48 nationally, 429.0 ypg
- 2021: No. 3 Pac-12, No. 40 nationally, 431.1 ypg
- 2022: No. 5 Pac-12, No. 17 nationally, 466.9 ypg
- 2023: No. 11 Pac-12, No. 90 nationally, 355.1 ypg
Scoring offense
- 2019: No. 4 Pac-12, No. 38 nationally, 32.3 ppg
- 2021: No. 2 Pac-12, No. 14 nationally, 36.1 ppg
- 2022: No. 5 Pac-12, No. 11 nationally, 38.6 ppg
- 2023: No. 10 Pac-12, No. 78 nationally, 25.3 ppg
Take those numbers, then go back about a decade and look at the revolving door of OCs who have come through here. Ludwig's offenses have been steady, if not prolific; and frankly, with Rising mostly healthy in 2022, the offense was electric at times.
I don't want to give a mulligan for poor offense in 2023, but c'mon. Ludwig had one-and-a-half hands tied behind his back for all of September as far as Utah's QB situation goes, his running back situation has been messy, and he hasn't had much in the way of a pass-catching tight end through 10 games.
Actually, big picture, a mulligan for 2023 might be fair.
Utah is not going to move on from Ludwig, but if it did, I think that would be a bad idea given you're moving into a new conference with what projects as a veteran team, including the presumption that Rising is coming back.
Q: "When you are eating a bagel, do you eat the top half or bottom half first? Do you save the top half for last to enjoy the thicker side with the toppings (if you have them), or do you eat the top half first when you're hungriest to enjoy it more?" - @SaltLakeJake
When Bill Simmons was still at ESPN and actually, you know, writing, he used to do a mailbag. At the end, he would take an outlandish question, answer it, and to close that last question, he would say, "Yup, these are my readers."
Yup, these are my readers.
A lot of you already know I take my bagels seriously, but this move has never crossed my mind. I don't stare at the two sides intently, trying to decide which one to consume first. Although, after reading this question, maybe I should.
I can say that after I spread cream cheese on a bagel, I will, for a split-second, see which side has more and just make a mental note that I need to be spreading it out evenly between the two sides.
This is a wild question that clearly took a lot of thought to produce. Please, don't think I don't appreciate this stuff, because I really do.
Q: "With changes at Texas A&M and Boise State, Is Utah a "shopper" transfer-wise. I mean, any more than would be in the general market as it looked a week ago?" - @VegasUte
Yeah, interesting.
I think everyone at the Power Five level is always in "shopper" mode, right? You're always looking to improve, always at least kicking the tires on portal guys, always trying to gauge whether or not portal guys might fit with your team, your scheme, your culture.
To your point, I don't think there is any heightened urgency with 30-day windows opening up for players where head coaches have been fired, like Texas A&M with Jimbo Fisher and Boise State with Andy Avalos.
I thought Whittingham made his sense of personnel/portal urgency clear Monday when he told the media during his normal weekly presser that he is already having conversations with his own players about their respective futures, something he never used to do until the regular season ended.
Times have changed, though, and he knows there is urgency to get it all figured out ASAP, not because of the 30-day portal windows and some schools, but because the regular portal window opens Dec. 4.
Whittingham is typically very even-keeled with the media, and he was on Monday, but on this particular topic, I got the sense that Whittingham was already prepared for whatever is to come for some of his players that may opt to leave for the portal or the NFL.
Having your finger on the pulse and having a plan are two things Whittingham is generally very good with.
Q: "Who, if anyone, on this team is skip-the-bowl-game worthy? No one's jumping out to me." - @MJ_Pushedov
The one player who jumps out to me is Cole Bishop.
Now three years removed from high school, Bishop is NFL draft-eligible. In terms of mock drafts being produced by reputable media, the true junior safety is mostly popping up as a Day 2 selection, meaning the second or third round.
In some cases, he's appearing early in Day 3, but the point stands. If Bishop leaves for the draft, he is going to be picked, and if that's the trajectory, he would be a prime candidate to skip Utah's bowl, which would, of course, be outside the New Year's Six.
I don't know that Jonah Elliss would leave for the NFL draft as a true junior, but let's not rule that out yet. Same idea as Bishop, skip the non-NY6 in order to heal up/preserve good health and potentially get ready for the NFL Scouting Combine. For what it's worth, Elliss' dad knows a thing or two about this stuff.
Q: "What will be the Laramie of the new Big 12, and will there be multiple Laramies?" - @MenaceSocietyUT
Every time Laramie comes up, no matter the context, I feel compelled to remind everyone that Utah still has to play at Wyoming in 2025, the start of a home-and-home series agreed to in 2017 under former Utes AD Chris Hill.
That series was to start in Laramie in 2020 and come to Salt Lake City in 2025, but COVID changed that, so Utah goes there in 2025 and Wyoming comes here in 2027.
No, I don't think Mark Harlan is going to eventually buy out of that contract. He's made clear in the past he doesn't want such things, and I don't believe that thinking has changed now that Utah is going to the Big 12.
Anyway, I have never been to Laramie, but I would like to go at some point. There seems to be a variety of opinions about Laramie, both positive and negative. I am in no position to really speak on Laramie, but after doing some research, Stillwater seems Laramie-adjacent? Same with Morgantown? Maybe Manhattan?
Without being fully qualified to compare Laramie to potential Laramies, it seems there may be several potential Laramies, which, again, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Here's my underdeveloped, semi-uneducated thought on Laramie, specifically as a football/work weekend destination: I always enjoy a dive bar, or a dive-y bar. Laramie strikes me as that type of town, containing dive-ish bars where I can walk in, order a Lone Star in a bottle, and not get a weird look.
Sign me for a good Laramie'ing in the future, whether it be 2025 or beyond.
