Josiah Jefferson Commits to Utah over Oklahoma

[OffensiveLineEnthusiast]

JUCO Tight End from San Diego. A 3-star, but had an offer from Oklahoma. Ranked as the 4th overall JUCO prospect in the class of 2026. Good get. Hope he’s great.

[Larry B]

Getting excited about a JUCO brings me back to our MWC days.

[PhillyUte]

This whole class feels like a mountain west conference recruiting class. We need to get the Pula brothers.

[AZUTE]

I thought we got rid of Caliman??

This board is overrun with trolls. I guess cause it’s free.

[PhillyUte]

What troll are you talking about?

[Larry B]

Pointing out that our recruiting hasn’t been this bad since the Mountain West days isn’t trolling. We seem to have a lot of red goggled fans who still think the “diamond in the rough” method is going to work like it always has. It won’t work in the NIL era. The bottom line is that if we can’t compete in NIL, we won’t compete on the field.

[RoboUte]

What’s more we already aren’t competing on the field. Two and a half years of the worst football in decades and a middling recruiting class. Add that to two extremely uninspired showings in a row against your local rival’s mediocre team and there aren’t a lot of programs where the coach wouldn’t be on the chopping block at this point, the trend is getting pretty obvious.

[Tednab]

As of today our 2026 recruiting class is 14th in the conference 66 overall and our star average ain’t competing either at 85.92 .. so ya! We got a JUCO

[PhillyUte]

I know. I’m just pointing out the complaining about trolling while talking about our mediocre class. I guess some people don’t like the truth and downvoting makes them feel better.

[HATUman]

Well I’m not going to pony up any money for NIL, and don’t expect any of you to either, so it’s not something I’m going to complain about.

[D T]

Win this year & our recruiting class will finish strong.

[Charlie]

This is the key. Take a minute and look at the list of the top 25 Utah football recruits all time. Half you don’t remember because they left for some reason and/or simply didn’t see the field in any meaningful way. Then consider the list of Utah football players drafted by the NFL. Note pleanty of players that did not get attention when initially recruited or when they transferred to Utah. Some are highly rated and drafted for sure. I already know our coaches look deeper than a few star ratings for players but it is a dog eat dog world in the competition for good players.

Our coaches put a lot of focus into the Rising basket. Why wouldn’t they? How many other college QBs had as much success as he did and still had 2 years of eligibility remaining? Some fans are critical but also have little understanding of the issues related to getting him back onto the field. The team had bad luck, yes bad luck, getting the results from Rising’s recovery that they hoped for and the coaches did get caught short not having a serviceable backup QB. Sadly, this issue spanned two consecutive seasons. Some will assume we can’t fix the QB issue or that the bad luck/shortcoming will spread to the entire football team. I am an optimist but I think the issue will be fixed like so many issues have been in the last 30 years.

But I agree with you, win this year and this issue will be forgotten like Jordan Wynn’s injury, and we are a contender in the Big-12 8 out of 10 years. Struggle this year and getting the ship right gets harder. NIL will play a part but the NIL resource winners in the first few years will not simply be the winners for ever more. Stay positive.

[Central Coast Ute]

Yeah that’s great. But Utah will develop them and then what? They’ll leave for a bigger pay day. NIL isn’t enough and the old strategy won’t work either.

[EastCoastUte]

I mean, we’ve had two sht years and bringing in a brand new OC. you think high school kids are flocking in line to come to Utah? Naw, while I do like the guys we are recruiting, we are a developing school and going back to the way we do things. mold 3 star into NFL talent.

[BeachUte]

There is no developing in the NIL era. The second that talent grows into NFL caliber type players, they will seek out better NIL deals that Utah can’t match. It’s a big reason why they lost some decent talent to BYU, Washington and Alabama in the previous portals – those schools all have more NIL resources than Utah.

The Utes will be able to keep some of the talent but the old way is not going to be effective anymore. It just isn’t until they can produce a NIL deal at the level of the top of the Big 12 and not toward the middle.

[Central Coast Ute]

Not sure why BeachUte was down voted for speaking the truth. As soon as a kid breaks out, he’s going to ask for more money and he’ll go to the highest bidder.

[AZUTE]

From the Horses mouth.

“We are going to focus less and less on kids from HS and fill our immediate needs with players from the portal”. “High School players with fill depth gaps.”

[GameForAnyFuss]

I still laugh at fans getting frothy over a recruit signing (or not signing). How many times do I have to say it? HS recruiting doesn’t matter any more. No, not in the slightest.

[Author]

Posts