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It’s that time of year.
For many, Memorial Day marked the start of summer, and while football is on the horizon — the Utes traditionally start their fall camp in late July or early August — there’s still over three months until Utah kicks off its season at the Rose Bowl against UCLA.
One thing that helps tide college football fans over until fall is the annual release of college football preview magazines, and Athlon Sports recently released its annual national preview, which featured an anonymous opposing Big 12 coach giving their thoughts about the Utes.
“Kyle Whittingham’s teams are defined by their physicality, and this is going to be more of a tempo, bang-bang approach to keep pace in the league.”
— opposing Big 12 football coach
“The Big 12 is really hard to forecast. These guys were supposed to dominate last year, and they imploded,” the coach said.
As has been well-covered since last season, Utah finished with a 5-7 record — its first losing season since 2013 and just its third losing record in the Kyle Whittingham era.
With quarterback Cam Rising out for the majority of the season, the Utes couldn’t overcome offensive woes and the team’s passing game left much to be desired.
That’s all in the past, though, and hope springs eternal on the Hill with the additions of New Mexico offensive coordinator Jason Beck, New Mexico quarterback Devon Dampier and Washington State running back Wayshawn Parker.
As the opposing Big 12 coach notes, however, there are still questions around Utah’s offense.
- Can Dampier thrive in the step up in competition, while cutting down on turnovers and improving his accuracy?
- How will the wide receiver group, which has a lot of new faces, perform?
- Can Parker lead a running backs room full of new additions?
The only group without question marks is the offensive line, which returns all five starters from a season ago.
If Utah can answer those questions and produce on offense, it will have a better season than it did a year ago.
“There’s a lot of questions here, and mainly on offense. (Andy) Ludwig and Cam (Rising) are gone, and they’re going with a spread RPO scheme. It’s going to look very different than what we’re used to from this program,” the opposing Big 12 coach said.
“Kyle Whittingham’s teams are defined by their physicality, and this is going to be more of a tempo, bang-bang approach to keep pace in the league.”
Defensively, coordinator and head-coach-in-waiting Morgan Scalley puts out a quality product a lot more often than not, and despite some key losses, especially at the defensive tackle position, the opposing Big 12 coach expects Utah to have another tough defense.
The Utes are led on that side of the ball by cornerback Smith Snowden, safety Tao Johnson and linebacker Lander Barton.
“Defensively, they’re replacing a ton, but that’s not as concerning. The staff is great, they’re consistent and good evaluators and developers of talent. They’ve got some good dudes in that secondary. If the offense can rebound, the defense will find their footing, too,” the opposing Big 12 coach said.
While the Utes have a tough schedule that opens at UCLA and features conference games against Big 12 contenders Kansas State, Arizona State and Texas Tech, Athlon is projecting the Utes to do better than their 13th-place finish in the 16-team conference a season ago.
Athlon, which picked Kansas State to win the conference, projects the Utes to finish in seventh place, one spot below BYU and one spot above Kansas, and picked offensive linemen Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu to their preseason All-Big 12 team.
In case you missed it
What’s the most critical stretch in the schedule for every Big 12 team, including the Utes? Brandon Judd breaks it down in his latest article.