PALO ALTO, Calif. — A year ago, it was hard to find much goodwill toward Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham and his staff. The Utes were 4-5, in the middle of a five-game losing streak. Their lone conference success was a short-lived win over Stanford.
This year there’s zero serious talk about Whittingham’s job security. Nor should there be. Utah is 6-3 and bowl-eligible, but equally important is that the Utes have, for the first time, been winning half or more of their conference games.
That could easily change on Saturday against Stanford. The Cardinal has been alternating wins and losses the last five games. It entered the top 25 early in the season and didn’t drop out until week nine, following a loss to Arizona State.
If things go poorly for the Utes at Stanford Stadium, they could end up 1-4 or even winless in their final five games. Would that make Whittingham a failure?
No, he’s more like Miracle Max, the wizard in “The Princess Bride” who nicely summed up the Utes’ 2013 status: “Turns out your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. See, mostly dead is still slightly alive.”
At the end of last season, Whittingham’s job status appeared shaky. He had gone 5-7 in consecutive years. Now he deserves a one-year extension, which would take him through 2017. Getting the Utes into the rankings and to a bowl game are all the credentials he needs right now. He conjured up a holocaust ball, a la Miracle Max, to bring the patient back to life.
Have fun storming the castle!
Utah can’t finish worse than last year, even if it loses to Stanford, Arizona and Colorado. But anyone who doesn’t think the Utes are better hasn’t been watching Devontae Booker, the special teams or the defense.
But Whittingham defers when asked what he would consider a success.
“Just trying to beat Stanford,” he said this week. “Look at the big picture at the end of the season and determine what we thought we did or didn’t do.”
Here’s what they did do: beat Michigan, UCLA and USC in the same season. It wasn’t those opponents’ best years, but still. The Utes avoided losing to Fresno State in a game that could have caught them off guard. They beat Oregon State on the road and played Arizona State and Oregon (for three quarters) tough.
Now they’re positioning for the postseason.
Expectations have risen as the Utes have progressed, but that doesn’t negate their improvement. Before this season there was just one guaranteed win on the schedule: Idaho State. Turns out the smaller-division Bengals are far better (7-3, 5-1) than expected.
So even though the Utes aren’t counting wins, someone should.
“We don’t have a number,” wide receiver Kenneth Scott said. “We just want to win every game and we feel we have the talent to do it.”
Maybe — if he's including the people in rehab.
Odds of winning the rest of their games, minus two key receivers (Tim Patrick, Dres Anderson), a starting quarterback (Kendal Thompson), a starting linebacker (Jason Whittingham) and a starting defensive back (Tevin Carter) aren’t great. Yet somehow they’ve made it this far.
One more major injury and the Utes should plan on losing the rest of their games; one fewer and they might have been 8-1.
All of which brings it back to Whittingham and this season. For starters, he gets bonus points for not whining. Things have dipped since the Utes were 6-1 and ranked 17th , thanks in part to injuries. Yet they’re still in the Top 25. Most people expected at this point the Utes would be manning the lifeboats.
“Desperate?” Whittingham said, when asked about his two-game losing streak. “We’re hungry for a win every week. … I wouldn’t say desperate’s the right word. No. We’re just doing our thing and we’re going to come out and be ready to play.”
That’s a cliché, but in this case it’s also accurate.
Which is reason enough to call the season a success.
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