Interesting comment from UCLA alum

[SkinyUte]

Friend of mine is a UCLA alum and booster.  He’s been to a couple games at RES and is always very complimentary of Utah.  He made an interesting comment in a college football discussion on another forum.

Its always fascinating to me to see thoughts from other fan bases about the Utes, figured I’d share.

 

Side note: some of my Alumni buddies want us to make a run at Whittingham in anticipation of us firing Mora. IMHO, he’s a solid coach, but the inability to coach/recruit/keep healthy a top notch QB has killed them, and left him with a rather ugly mark on his resume – the only Pac-12 South team to not have won the South, and arguably the team which has most underperformed its talent in the Pac-12 other than us (8 NFL draft picks last year, and as many NFL players as any Pac-12 team other than SC and UCLA – which says a lot about how we’ve underperformed).

[Ute Bc]

I could see Whitt using UCLA as leverage for more money. I could never see him actually going though.

[Hellhound152]

That is an interesting point of view. I would think that the better perspective would be “if he can get those guys to the league imagine what he could do with the talent UCLA recruits.”

However, we all know he ain’t going anywhere.  Whit has not acheived his goals at Utah. 

[AlohaUte]

arguably the team which has most underperformed its talent in the Pac-12 other than us (8 NFL draft picks last year, and as many NFL players as any Pac-12 team other than SC and UCLA – which says a lot about how we’ve underperformed).

What? You mean the 2* and 3* talent that he developed. What kind of crazy statement is that? It’s not like Whittingham was pulling in a bunch 5* kids and squandering the talent like Tennessee.

[gUrthBrooks]

Exactly. Utah’s guys didn’t show up to Utah as NFL talent ala Myles Jack. 

[Anonymous]

I’m curious to see how many of our fans ruminate on your buddy’s comments and not merely “react” to it.

IMO — there are different perspectives and angles. btw…not saying Whit has not made any mistakes.
– It’s true that Utah is the only South team that has not won a division championship. That said, of all the P12 South schools, IMO, Utah has the least amount of glitz. Yah, yah…we were the BCS buster, but let’s go beyond that.
– It’s true that Utah has as many NFL picks/players as those other schools; however, how many of our players were skill-players from the offensive side and/or the glory defensive positions (e.g. DE, LB). My point is that Whit has identified and developed a lot of so called 2*/3* players into NFL-caliber talent — most of them are the “uglies” who play in the trenches. Sure, there are a few exceptions like Alex Smith, Smith Sr., Dyson (not that big of a name), and Weddle. Still, few and far in between.
– Would Utah have accomplished more if the program were able to get many of those 4*/5* players similar to what SC/UCLA/Washington have had? Perhaps.
– Although Colorado and Utah joined P12 at the same time, Colorado has much more glitzy history than that of Utah. Utah is not exactly on the top, or top 25%, list of many recruits. We’re are starting to attract more, but still not there for now.
– Whit is a defensive minded coach and, unfortunately, never really did have an offensive guru as OC, at least not someone who stayed and established something. Look what Leach has done at WSU; if I were a top-flight receiver, I would rank WSU above Utah because Leach’s reputation on offense.

Just a few of my initial thoughts.

[MotherJabubu]

I agree with the other posters, that’s a pretty backwards way of looking at it. One of Whittinghams strengths is to coach up 3* and JUCO talent to high, even NFL standards. He’s been slowly gaining more and more starting talent as the years go on. All criticism about the offense is well deserved though.

[Red Don]

Yes, we are the only Pac-12 South team to have not won the division, but we are also the only team that was not P5 prior to joining the Conference, so it’s going to take us longer and I’m ok with that.  The rest he’s probably got a good read on it.  But, with the hire of TT and recent quality QB’s on board and in the que, I think we’re past that.

[gUrthBrooks]

Well said. 

[UTE98]

Okay, maybe not the best analogy but it’s what popped into my head.

During our time in the MWC were were racing a souped up Camaro against a few Ford Pintos (Wyoming, UNLV), against a few Cadillacs (BYU, TCU) and a whole bunch of Ford Taurus.

Sometimes we stunk off the line, UNLV in THAT game, UNM during 2003. But overall we were pretty good.

Sometimes the tuning was really good, like in 2003/2004 and 2008. Sometimes we lost to the Cadillacs (TCU) in horrible fashion.

So then all of the sudden we changed classes and are now racing Land sharks and Dragsters. The first year we caught a few people by surprise, but the next couple years they knew what they were racing and we lost. Then we started getting more sponsors (heftier share of the pie) better parts, more knowledge, better equipment (facilities), better mechanics (coaches i.e. Erickson) and are now getting better parts (players). We’ve been competing at a disadvantage for quite a while. And now that we’re starting to see better results it seems some want to scrap our current mechanics and change engines (offense/style of play). We’ve got the most senior mechanic in the Pac 12, why oh why seek out johnny come lately who doesn’t know what we’ve got in cars/parts, mechanics, equipment, and start all over?

Right now we’ve got QBs who were recruited by Washington and Alabama as our second and third string, behind a player recruited by a mechanic/crew chief who know our situation, and we’ve got some pretty good ones waiting in the wings. 10-2 this year would be overachieving, but possible, 8-4 is likely and still a good season, but what happens if we blow an engine and go 5-7? Well we learn from it and look to take the title next year. 11 out of 12 teams each year do not win the Pac-12 championship game. 10 out of 12 don’t win their division. I think it is extremely naive to think we can win the South every year. With USC and their legacy advantages and hisgory I think winning 1 every four or five years is realistic. And we’re just beyond that, but again, we were racing Camaros 5 and 6 years ago. Maybe we hit the jet fuel (USC) level in another 10-20 years, but for now we should be happy to beat out the jet fuel funny car once every few years when they red light and drop a couple games.

Vroom Vroom!!!!!!

 

 

 

[RedLine]

Could make a whole thread out of this car analogy.  I remember reading a sports article from OregonLive after Mark Helfrich lost to Utah in dominating fashion at Autzen.  Author wrote that Mark Helfrich had been given the keys to a Lambougini after Chip left.  Oregon sure ain’t driving that same Lambougini today. Souped up lower end Camero seems about right for Utah leaving the MWC to the PAC. 

[Tony (admin)]

Utah Football is like a dependable old work truck.

[pedro]

Your freind is a moron.  It would take all of 2 minutes to research the average ranking of everyone of those players that Whit made into NFL talent.  How do you underperform when you are outperforming everyone’s expectation of you?  As Red used to say…. ‘Dumbass!’