Yes. When he got Andy and we saw what Andy was doing, most of us breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Finally!”
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Andy can’t leave. He hasn’t done his exploding drum solo yet. 
Generally I agree with you but Utah’s offense was a real problem after Ludwig left and stayed that way until he returned. One might make the argument that Ludwig is as important to Utah’s success as Whit is. I don’t mean that to be disrespectful to Whit but rather an interpretation of the data.
I hope they would give Ludwig whatever he wants to stay and expect the offense to take a major step backwards if he leaves.
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Seriously though, the era of the revolving door OC’s was extremely painful. Our offense during that era was a bottom feeder of the conference. Hell, I believe it it fair to say our offense in the early years of the PAC 12 was so bad, had it just found “middle of the road” we would’ve won the conference championship sooner than we did. Lord know our defense was lights out, but our offense - ouch.
Ludwig cleaned up the mess and made it so the offense was not a liability, but an asset. He and his crew now are able to recruit to the offense the way Utah has recruited to the defense for decades. Losing him would hurt the reload abilities a lot.
That said, we need to be developing his replacement. Let’s face it folks, Andy is not a young guy and some day he is going to want to move on to a new chapter (likely retirement). Having a Ludwig-trained OC in the wings to step in would help maintain stability.
I hope we never have to relive that era of OC roulette again.
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It’s been 10 years. Bring Brian home!
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IMO Kyle made a mistake and threw Brian Johnson into the deep end immediately. I thought the best thing for Brian was to work in other programs and gain experience and test his ability to succeed. He’s done that and proven himself. I’d be fully supportive of him coming back as OC should Ludwig leave, although I don’t want Andy to go quite yet.
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Super Bowl winning QB coach (calling my shot) coming back to his Alma Mater to redeem himself as OC is a great story.
Also sets him up nicely to take over the program in a few years.
That’s my biggest fear about Lud leaving. It isn’t going to help recruiting, that is for sure. Maybe our only hope is that some money will come in to convince him to stay.
I would not be surprised if he ultimately gets a nice big raise and decides to stay at Utah. I’m sure he is seriously considering the job at Notre Dame, but I’m also sure that he knows that Whit and Utah will do everything they can to keep him. It’s the smart move; if I were in his shoes, I’d be interviewing for the job and for the raise, and see which one turns out best.
In the end, considering his age, comfort level and lifestyle at Utah, they’ll have to offer him a lot to leave compared to Utah offering him relatively little more to stay.
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Real concern is if he takes some coaches and players with him
Is he really the big recruiter for the Utes?
Probably not- many of us are just terrified that our offense will go back to sucking without him
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That’s my guess, as well.
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Andy has always been the significant QB recruiter but did not have significant involvement with other positions.
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Every time I see that there’s an update on this thread I open it with trepidation.
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In case you missed it, ND’s OL coach just retired. I’m hoping this doesn’t lead to a Ludwig/Harding exodus to ND.
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I wonder if Ludwig told ND he wanted to bring his own o-line coach as part of the deal?
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