My non-football mind has never understood how Utah handles QBs. Early in our PAC-12 membership I wondered how attractive Utah would be to desirable QB or WR recruits, given our run-heavy offense and and apparent emphasis on defense. With Tyler Huntley and then Rising, and the offensive power that has developed, I thought maybe we were past that era. But the old weirdness of our approach to QBs seems to be creeping back. I know, injuries, the transfer portal, NIL, etc. I could be overreacting. But still…
4 Likes
I still can’t see how Utah—a team that has been a consistent top-20 program, that has back-to-back PAC-12 titles and four consecutive title-game appearances (throwing out 2020) coming into the year—can’t have a better backup QB option than Barnes. Johnson had his chance, and he proved to be a worse thrower than Barnes. Then you have Rose, who apparently wasn’t worthy of a series or two in a meaningless bowl game when Barnes stunk.
The problem goes back to Rising’s surgery. It was multiple ligament tears, not just the ACL. And his surgeon said for multiple tears it is 11-12 months.
Surgery was in January so no way was he coming back this year, no matter hos good his rehab looked.
The Utes medical staff should have read the operative report & figured that out. That is not Whit’s job. Then they could have gone to the portal & found a 1 year rental.
4 Likes
I know UNLV is losing right now and will almost certainly end up losing its game, but it’s pretty sad their offense looks 10 times better than Utah’s. That’s inexcusable, even with Utah’s injuries.
2 Likes
Yup, a very disappointing ending. Unfortunate and embarrassing.
1 Like
Look, I get that Utah had a crazy number of injuries, some early departures for the draft, and other thing going on. But sorry, Utah’s backup QB and WRs should be better than UNLV’s starters. And it sure didn’t look that way on Saturday and tonight. Among other things, Whit needs to spend the offseason taking a hard look at personnel, offensive philosophy, and how players are being developed and used. Can we please get some receivers that get open and then do something after the catch?
We were often seeing players who weren’t just the backup. They were 3-4 deep on the chart and we aren’t Georgia or Ohio State. Our starters can hang with about any team in the country but we kid ourselves if we think we have the resources and draw to keep amazing 3-4th stringers sitting idle and that the next man up slogan for Utah means the same thing (especially on Offense) that it does on perennial CFP teams.
UNLV starters on offense are probably kids we’d love to have on backup in many of our O positions. They’d have been started for us last week in several spots.
1 Like
I saw multiple people who know football point out we had multiple receivers open all game, but Barnes missed them time and time again.
The QB issue is an issue, but it seems Barnes struggled to actually see his WR’s
2 Likes
I’d like to think without the OL departures BB might have settled into a better rhythm, but that’s not what happened, he was way off, eventually visibly frustrated while being medically evaluated, waving his own finger back and forth as a concussion test.
And he still came back in. Any soldier in combat would be lucky to have Bryson Barnes in his unit. Not an Elite 11 invitee, but that guy is unbelievable.
I’m the first to mock whatever is going on in Provo, but I trust A-Rod knows what he’s doing, with 2 QBs in the league. This year they had the skilled, highly experienced P5 transfer Slovis turned into hamburger by bad OL play. Then the JC transfer with the rocket arm and impressive athleticism looked really promising… until he, too, was hot garbage.
Bryson Barnes was neither of them, but he had the heart of a warrior and belief in himself. His season went from the opening play vs UF going 70+ yards to getting demolished in Vegas.
Noah Fifita came in as a FR and looked like Mahomes in chaotic situations, sending the previously impressive Jayden DeLaura back into the portal. Rare performance.
I’m hopeful about Wilson, but it’s a tall order to ask any QB to thrive when big, fast tough guys are trying to do them harm. We reduced Williams the Heisman winner to pouting, while with better protection Nix and Penix were finalists for the Heisman, this year.
I wonder if Garcia might be a rare OL good enough to start as FR.
We need it. Rising needs it, Wilson needs it.
8 Likes
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Transfer Portal Thread
A post was merged into an existing topic: The Transfer Portal Thread
15 posts were merged into an existing topic: The Transfer Portal Thread