Cam Rising and Nate Johnson will continue to split practice reps, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham confirmed on Monday.
As Utah waits for Rising to get the final go-ahead to return to game play, he will continue to work in practice with no limitations, splitting reps with Johnson.
Rising has missed each of Utah’s first four games this season since tearing his ACL in the January Rose Bowl and undergoing surgery to repair it that same month. The senior quarterback dressed for the first time all season during pregame warmups before Utah’s win over UCLA, but emerged from the tunnel in a T-shirt and shorts for kickoff.
Johnson got the start and was 9 for 17 for 117 yards, a touchdown pass, and turned the ball over once on a fumble as Utah’s offense scored just seven points in the 14-7 win. Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig called a pretty conservative game, running the ball 74% of the time against UCLA to try and limit any turnovers. Utah’s defense played a great game, holding the Bruins to just seven points, so the offensive game plan worked.
Afterward, Johnson tweeted out an apology.
“I apologize for the way the game was played out credit to our defense for an amazing performance we will be better next week our offense is still awesome just things will get cleaned up see you guys next Friday.”
Whittingham, who says he “never ever gets on Twitter or any social media” (good choice, coach), said he was oblivious to Johnson’s social media message late Saturday night.
“That’s admirable if he’s taking accountability, I don’t know if it’s accurate,” Whittingham said.
The longtime Utah coach pointed to a lot of different factors for the offensive struggles, starting with UCLA’s athletic and fast defense. The running backs room, with Micah Bernard out for the season and lead back Ja’Quinden Jackson dealing with a nagging ankle injury, has also been “a little bit of a musical chairs position for us,” Whittingham said.
The Utes coach also mentioned that the offensive line has to be a little more dominant up front, noting that while the O-line hasn’t had a bad game yet, there’s been a couple of games where it hasn’t been so good.
“Nate is a standup guy and he’s learning how to be a leader and to me I take that as a positive thing from Nate that he would point the finger at himself even though I’m not buying into that,” Whittingham said.
That said, the passing game has to improve ahead of a road matchup in Corvallis, Oregon, against No. 19 Oregon State on Friday. No. 10 Utah ranks No. 114 out of 130 FBS teams with just 170.3 passing yards per game.
“Probably No. 1 is having more of a threatening throw game because when teams just know you’re not going to throw, they load up the box and it’s tough sledding,” Whittingham said.
Whittingham thinks the receivers are getting separation and getting open often enough, but says it’s a matter of Johnson feeling comfortable for the passing game to take that next step forward.
“It is just a matter of Nate feeling comfortable and going through his progression and us doing a good job of making sure there’s not too much on his plate. He’s still a young quarterback and we’ve got to be careful,” Whittingham said. “I mentioned last week, I think it was, he’s got about 70%, 75% of the offense and that’s probably where it stays for the time being. We’re not going to expand that just yet.”
