Sorry, I love Whit; he is an excellent coach. But his management of QBs is bizarre.
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Given the violence of his injury sustained that kept him out, there may be more to what is going on here. I have seen these kinds of injuries make people get hesitant about contact when put back into the fray. It takes time to acclimate and build the confidence back to perform at the highest levels. Add to the fact the kid hasn’t taken a game snap in two years, and it wouldn’t have been prudent to throw him to the wolves with a makeshift line.
I’m not a sports/Ortho guy, but I believe some people recover from certain ankle sprains while others suffer from chronic reccurence. Hoping the time off along with appropriate physical therapy will help him put this in the past. Maybe playing wasn’t such a good idea for his overall recovery? Credit to these athletes who truly sacrifice their bodies for our entertainment and vicarious living.
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Having been a lifelong fan, I’ve watched nearly 500 Utah football games in my lifetime. Im still trying to decide if yesterday was the worst offensive performance I’ve seen from Utah?
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It was ugly.
Have to give credit to Northwestern for taking the bowl seriously, their D was solid. At the same time, that was probably BB’s worst day throwing the ball, just inexplicably way off.
We’ve seen elite QB play recently at Utah: Rising and Huntley. Huntley didn’t blossom until his 3rd year, Rising didn’t displace Charlie Brewer until Game 3 of 2021.
It takes a lot of prep work and seasoning to get good QB play. If it was easy, Ferrari Bottari would have started and finished the game. (How somebody like Noah Fifita can play at UA as FR and do well? I don’t know, but he beat out DeLaura, who was pretty good himself.)
Given Huntley & Rising, at this point just have to trust the coaches & the process and see how things go next year.
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I don’t know. In the first half, I think Bryson was one for five with two of those passes resulting in interceptions. I don’t recall how many yards passing he had in the first half, but it was a pathetically low number. It would be hard to do worse. I am confident that no first half performance in a bowl game by an Utah QB has been as bad.
I still love the guy for all that you did for us this year. This season would have been much worse without him, I believe. He simply had a horrible game yesterday.
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Barnes had 20 more passing yards on his first play from scrimmage this year than he did all day yesterday.
Illinois put up 42 points on this Nortwestern defense.
Utah last 4 games we are -5 in turnovers and have lost 3 of 4.
Frustrating end of the year. 
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Yes. Look at our basketball program as an example. Lots of people were ready to blow it up and get rid of Majerus so we could improve. Hill brought in Giacoletti saying we make big name coaches rather than hire them. That obviously did not age well.
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Improving wasn’t why Majerus was on the outs. At all.
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Not to change topics, but I was thinking something similar about how the Jazz - or rather Danny Ainge - decided to bail on Mitchell, Gobert & Conley.
The road back is looking pretty long.
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Fair enough. Majors had his warts. I suppose my question is whether people would, in retrospect, be in a hurry to send him packing or ask him to keep things going- warts and all.
I don’t remember any curtains covering up the empty seats during the Majors Era.
It’s a much different era.
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I’ll take this opportunity to tell my one personal Majerus story:
I was in college and played pickup basketball in the HPER essentially every day. Good times. One day the tunnel to the Huntsman Center was open. It was dark but lights could be seen in the distance. I figured that I was not supposed to go in there but that they probably wouldn’t put me in jail for going down the tunnel so down I went.
After nervously walking for some time I realized that the tunnel ended in the Hunty and then realized that the team was practicing. I moved into the shadows and watched. These were the Byron Wilson days. That dude was a specimen and could really ball. The team was scrimmaging and Majerus was working with their offensive scheme. Byron passed when he had an open shot and Maj blew the whistle to shut everything down. He lined everyone up and asked them one at a time if he lets them shoot.
“John, do I let you shoot the ball?” Majerus said.
“No coach,” John said.
“Jimmy, do I let you shoot the ball?”
"No coach.’
“Sam, do I let you shoot?”
“No coach.”
Majerus literally asked 12 dudes one at a time whether he lets them shoot the ball. Each said no. Then he looked at Byron and screamed “see Byron, no one else is allowed to shoot. Who is going to shoot the @$#$%% @!@#@ ball if you don’t? So shoot the #%@# #@#$ ball!!”
My eyes were as big as saucers and I’m glad he didn’t know I was there. I had a huge smile on my face and decided it was time to make my way back to allowed areas before someone noticed me. I don’t remember anything else that happened that day but I doubt I’ll ever forget watching them practice and watching Maj yell at Byron. Byron was drafted by the Suns, didn’t do much in the NBA, but played professionally for 17 years.
Majerus had his warts. Many of the great coaches seem to be flawed characters. Utah basketball was a force to be reckoned with back then. Those were the days.
Utah football has been a force to be reckoned with over the past decade and I’m not in a hurry to “blow up” the coaching staff because the team sucks after losing 90% of the team to injuries and the NFL.
By the way, Whitt is all class and doesn’t have any warts. I’d put the probability of his replacement being better than him at < 2-3%. Oh and for the fire-Ludwig fools, the probability of Lud’s replacement being an improvement < 1%. Been there, done that. No thanks.
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Yes the team loses a lot now.
Well, hopefully this season will continue in a positive trajectory.
And the curtains have been removed after the team started to win.
I meant that people would often bring up Majerus’s tenure and accomplishments – that was a different era.
Personally, I don’t do that because the climate and culture now are so different from that time. Glad to see the team is evolving in the right direction.
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But, sadly, even though they’re winning there’s only been one game in the JMHC where the curtains should have been down. It’s still just a giant, red cavern these days. Hopefully with conference season starting that changes.
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How do you have a player for two years and not get him ready to play a single series? One series…just to see how it looks after the clustered performance from the starter. Boggles the mind.
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They should visit Arizona and see how to do it. They put in a true freshman that played so well, Fifita drove starter Da Laura back into the portal.
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