Transfer Portal QB

[TX_UTE]

Know this may be an unpopular take and I am likely to get flamed, but please stop complaining about how Whitt et al didn’t find the U a quality transfer QB. Think about the pitch to any potential quality transfers prior to the start of this year’s season, noting that most transfer do so for more playing time and exposure…

Q: What will my playing time look like?
A: Can’t answer, we have a stud starter who took us to the last two conference championships and two NYD 6 bowls who is hurt and we don’t know when he will come back. Plus a 4 star freshman in the QB room.

Q: OK, understood. If I do get to play, what kind of media deal does your conference have?
A: Uhh, can we get back to you on that?

Don’t know why those quality transfer portal QBs aren’t knocking down the door!

And as always, Go Utes!

[ProudUte]

Right now, I would not come to Utah as a transfer QB. Our offense is terrible.

Somehow, someway – I hope that we can change things.

[chinngiskhaan]

We’ve had a good offense two or three years in a row now. Our offense has been good with Rising at the helm, it was good with Huntley. If we have a good qb, we have a good offense. Any non-idiot qb transfer could see that easily.

[The Miami Ute]

Your supposed pitch is wrong. If Rising doesn’t play at all this season, and there’s no indication that he will, the Transfer Portal question needs to be answered by those responsible for the team.

My dad always used to tell me that you might lie to other people but you should absolutely never lie to yourself. If the coaching staff knew that Rising suffered a catastrophic knee injury with a normal recovery period of 12-18 months, they were lying to themselves thinking he could play this season.

The real pitch, as others have posted on here, should have been exactly that. That Rising most probably wouldn’t be playing this season because of the type of injury he had. For me, it’s impossible to believe that no decent QB would want to come to a two time defending conference champion.

[Utesbyfive]

Man, you’re like a broken record.

[The Miami Ute]

Rather be a broken record than a shill or an apologist.

[Ute2]

I don’t see how defending the GOAT and 2x defending conf. champ makes one a shill.

[The Miami Ute]

He’s a shill for defending a coaching staff that obviously made the wrong decision about the most important position on the field. As I’ve said innumerable times on this site, this is not about Rising or Kuithe. It’s about the coaching staff, who have the ultimate power in setting the direction of the team.

[alUmnUs]

This narrative that Utah’s coaches got hoodwinked by CR is one of the dumbest things being pushed by many on this site right now.

[The Miami Ute]

You’re the one that’s using the term “hoodwinked.”. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that there’s no logical explanation for thinking that a player that has an injury that requires 12+ months of rehab, will be back in six or eight. Personally, I’d like for Whitt to come out and explain his thought process on this issue.

[alUmnUs]

Potato/Potatoe.

You want an explanation from KW so you can feel better that he didn’t misread the QB situation? Call it what you want, but it’s a silly narrative.

If they wanted to lose a young QB plus screw up their QB recruiting in the next two classes by going to the portal for a 1 and done, they would have done that.

[The Miami Ute]

Oh, you mean like the times they went for Bentley and Brewer? Ok to do then but a no no now?

[alUmnUs]

That is an argument to completely blow up the QB room. I’m not sure you know that’s the argument you’re making, but yes, if that’s the direction KW wanted to go, then we’d have seen it.

But it’s incredibly difficult and risky to do that and you can’t do it in one off-season. The 2 QBs you mentioned were spectacular failures and remember, CR was also in that mix as a transfer and Utah got lucky 1/3 of those gambles paid off, plus the Covid year helped them be in a better position to recruit elite HS talent – which I believe is the strategy they prefer after the 2Bs disaster when they should have been picking up Z Wilson and Jax Dart.

[The Miami Ute]

The two QBs I mentioned were spectacular failures but were seen as really positive additions when it was announced that they were coming to Utah. Remember that Brewer is the second leading passer in Baylor history and Bentley is the fourth leading passer in South Carolina history. Those are not just empty stats.

In a sense, it’s similar to the way some people here feel it was a positive development not bringing in a QB from the portal. That decision may also turn out to be a spectacular failure.

[RoboUte]

The other explanation is that our coaching staff is mentally ill equipped to eat soup without a flotation device. Pick your preferred disappointment.

[The Miami Ute]

And Rising is most definitely not the GOAT as far as Utah QBs are concerned. He couldn’t carry Alex Smith’s or Scott Mitchell’s jock. That’s just recency bias on your part because you never saw those guys play.

[RoboUte]

[The Miami Ute]

LOL…that’s sacrilegious…does that make you Peter?

[22Ute22]

So he’s a broken record for repeating the correct idea, but you guys aren’t for repeating your incorrect idea? We wouldn’t have to keep repeating ourselves if you guys just dropped this silly narrative that is nothing but cope. Our coaching staff messed up.

[2008 National Champ]

shouldn’t that also apply to the OP? The “no one would dare challenge Rising” trope has passed it’s expiration date.

[RedUte14]

you’re super annoying bro.

[bopahull]

Please God let this hellish Bye week end.

[Ute2]

One thing you ignore when you make this argument is the Rose factor. Your argument assumes the coaches didn’t think they had anything in Rose. On paper this was a qb room with 3 that could play plus rising.

And as for rising, he’s running around taking hits and practicing(per the people that know things). And the coaches obviously knew he’d be at this point a lot sooner than you’re giving them credit for. A lot sooner than 12-18 mos. He’s a stingy surgeon from going. And I bet they knew that months and months ago he’d be to this point. Just not that the surgeon would hold him back for so long. And that surgeon is a real dick if he’s letting rising and Whitt think week to week when he has no intention of letting him play soon. That makes no sense.

[Ute2]

In fact. The conversation probably was that if rising went a little slower, they could get these young guys some experience while Rising took additional time, whether it was rose or Johnson. Then the qb room is all the better for it. So why bring in a transfer.

In camp they probs found that rose was ready and Johnson wasn’t. Which is fine. Then then Rose lacerated his liver.

[The Miami Ute]

I’m not ignoring Rose at all. Rose is an unproven and untried player that hasn’t played a down of collegiate football. What major college program would feel comfortable going into the season having him as the #1? Probably not very many. He might turn out to be really good or he might not.

As for Rising’s injury, are you an orthopedic surgeon? Because you sound as if you know more than the guy who’s the official doctor for the LA Dodgers and LA Rams. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to go with his professional advice instead of the opinion of a fan.

[Ute2]

High level programs go into seasons all the time with unproven guys. Like EVERY SINGLE YEAR. A lot of them. The coaches knew what they had in the room. They knew that risings timeline was not 12-18 months. Which is proven by the fact that he’s out there practicing and even taking hits.

[The Miami Ute]

Well, to me, the recovery period doesn’t end until the player is back in the lineup and playing. You might think differently. Also, just asking, are we absolutely certain that Rising practicing wasn’t done with the idea of giving the opponent something to think about?

Also, high level programs USED to go with unproven players at the QB position all the time. However, that’s no longer the case. If you look at current stats, well over sixty percent of P5 programs have a transfer as the starting QB.

[Ute2]

They are not giving rising 50% of the reps to throw Oregon state off the scent.

[The Miami Ute]

So explain why, after giving Rising more than half the reps for at least a couple of weeks, that policy has changed? Did the coaching staff all of a sudden realize that Rising is not close to coming back a month after the fact?

[Ute2]

They’ve realized that Nate needs a Nate game plan and a week of Nate to be successful. Which, if you want to criticize, that’s a place to do it. They should’ve been deciding to start the week who was getting the reps and the game plan.

[EagleMountainUte]

Because…why did they realize it? Keep going I think you might come to the logical conclusion.

[Ute2]

Because the way to better qb play is to game plan for the guy you know will start for a given week.

[2008 National Champ]

That is specifically what the people who you are telling don’t know what they are talking about have been saying for weeks.

[Ute2]

Also most these transfer qbs are transferring because they didn’t see the field where they were.

So they’re just new guys like Johnson and rose.

[The Miami Ute]

Maybe when you look at the overall number. However, a significant minority of these guys were also starters at their previous schools. That list is pretty long. Look at Bentley and Brewer when they came to the Utes. Those guys were three and four year starters at their respective schools prior to coming to Utah.

[Ute2]

Teams go into seasons with unproven talent at qb All. The. Time. High level, low-level, every kind of level teams are breaking in new qbs.

I never said I knew more than the surgeons. My case has been that there is no way the coaches just whistled past the grave yard like you imply to hey did.

They knew stuff about rising and the rest of our qb room that you ignore. Namely that rising’s timeline is not 12-18 mos(otherwise he wouldn’t be practicing in full while taking hits) and that we had something in rose that we don’t get to see because he’s been hurt.

[EagleMountainUte]

If they really counted Barnes I am sad as hell with that news.

[Tony (admin)]

The mentality of a winner is not that he would want to avoid going to Utah because their offense isn’t good. He would believe he can make the offense good.

[Tednab]

Takes an offensive minded coach to believe you could

[2008 National Champ]

He would also believe that he can win any competition necessary to get the job.

[NorthernUte]

Just took a scroll through the notable QB’s that entered the transfer portal last year, and I’m not that impressed by who is there for the taking anyway. The debate about taking a transfer QB last year seems completely ridiculous too me. First of all, we don’t know if Whitt tried to recruit one in the first place. Maybe he did and it was ineffective. Second, maybe they weren’t impressed by any of the QB’s that were in the portal. Third, maybe it’s just me but I’ve heard time and time again how hard it is to get Utah’s playbook down. From what I’ve seen on offense this year, I can’t imagine it’s that hard, but we’ve just heard from coaches before that it is a difficult playbook to get down. Maybe it would’ve been too difficult for someone new coming in to figure out and they just wanted to focus on the QB’s we had since they have a year in the playbook already. So much unknown about the whole situation, you can’t say it would’ve been better one way vs the other because plainly put, you don’t know.

[2008 National Champ]

Top QB transfers for 2023

Top 4 transfers still available in May 2023

7 Under the radar transfers for 2023

If you include Rising, 10 of the 12 PAC starters are transfers and only Caleb Williams wasn’t considered a bust or a reclamation project. Roughly 70% nationally of all QB starters are transfers. They can’t all have been in the Heisman conversation at their previous school or worse than what Utah has right now.

Whether you or I are impressed with the list doesn’t matter. What matters is the current state of the QB room at Utah which I think we can all agree has not lived up to expectations. So while the assumptions the staff made in the off-season may have seemed reasonable, they were inadequate for the current circumstances.

[The Miami Ute]

What list are you looking at? This one?:2023 Portal QBs

If so, what does it take to impress you? Some of these guys have actually had careers close to what Rising has accomplished at Utah.

[2008 National Champ]

And imagine how good anyone on that list would become once the QB Whisperer got his hands on them. After what he did with Huntley in 2019, he can make any scrub all-conference 🙂

[NorthernUte]

The QB’s on that list that would have been worth time from Utah would never have gone to Utah, i.e Sam Hartman, Devin Leary, and Shedeur… not a one of those guys is coming to Utah over the school they went to lol. And the fact that you think anyone on that list has a career similar to Rising’s tells me how serious I should take what you are saying. I can’t find a QB on there who has won 2 conference titles, especially at a P5 level. Maybe it’s just me though, Go Utes

[EagleMountainUte]

. You are comparing the list to Rising. If the coaching staff knew it was a year recovery they compare it Rose and NJ. And I guess Barnes. A walk on who gets a schollie after throwing a 70 yard touchdown to the wrong WR against Florida.

[2008 National Champ]

I swore to myself that I would let this go. But since I’ve never let anything go in my life, let me tell you a story about just 1 of the QB’s on that list you aren’t impressed by.

After the 2021 season, a kid named Jack Plummer entered the transfer portal. In three years at Purdue, he had your typical backup QB stats. Usually didn’t play except in garbage time or when QB1 was injured. Under QB guru Jeff Brohm, he was only able to amass the following: 319-492 (64%), 3405 yds, 26 Td’s, 10 Int in 21 games. Definitely not gotta have him stats.

In 2022, Plummer transferred to CAL which has had one of the worst passing games in the country since Justin Wilcox became head coach. Plummer started all 12 games for a run first team that didn’t make a bowl and put up the following: 282-451 (62.5%), 3119, 21 TD’s, 9 Int. Again, not knock you over with a feather stats but in comparing to Utah legend, and some would say GOAT, Cam Rising who put up 249-385 (64.7%), 3034 yards, 26 TD’s, 8 Int in 13 games.,, that’s pretty similar.

After 2022, Plummer again entered the transfer portal and joined up with Jeff Brohm at Louisville. The same Louisville that had been fair to middling since Bobby Petrino recruited Lamar Jackson. With a QB that could never compare to the GOAT, except statistically, Louisville has taken this two-time transfer and is now 6-0 which should be good enough to put them in the top 15. Impressive is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

Louisville has improved from 74th in ppg to 21st with an unimpressive QB. Whose resume was comparable to Rising except for the quality of team he had played for.

The problem with binary choices is that you can only evaluate what happened. Utah has a suck ass offense this year while waiting for Rising to return. That is the only thing we know for sure. It is all speculation that a transfer, any transfer, would be better than what we’ve seen so far. It is also speculation that every, not most but EVERY, QB in the portal was afraid to come to Utah and even if they did the offense would be just as exceptional at sucking ass.

[The Miami Ute]

I see a long line of peasants with torches and pitchforks headed your way. How dare you compare the “GOAT” to a mediocre two time transfer?

[NorthernUte]

Not here to argue with someone on a college football chat behind a screen. But just want to clarify, my previous comment was in response to Miami saying, “Some of these guys have actually had careers close to what Rising has accomplished at Utah.” What makes Rising special is his ability to “find a way” to win. IMO Rising is an above average QB, by no means has he ever been a Heisman finalist or anywhere near it in my eyes, but he does something that not many other QB’s in college can do. He wins, what makes him special is NOT his stats. Not sure if you watched the USC game at Utah last year, but without Rising in that game, we get our asses whooped. Rising has won back to back P12 championships for us. Jack Plummer has won every game so far this year, and is in the right offense for him, happy to see him doing well. In my eyes it’s completely ignorant to say the coaches were “wrong” for not picking up a transfer. Zero possible way to back up that argument, and there’s a reason we are on the couch right now and the coaches are on the field. Sorry for the confusion on that.

[The Miami Ute]

Rising has won back to back P12 championships for us.

I understand what you’re trying to say here but it’s not even remotely true. Football is a team game and all units of the team have to be talented and be in synch for a championship season to occur. Rising was a big part of that but you can’t discount the contributions of countless others. If for example, Utah had a USC level defense, none of those championships would have been possible.

[alUmnUs]

bUT “iT’s tHE MoSt iMpOrtANt pOsiTioN oN tHe fIEld.”

[The Miami Ute]

How’s that working out for the reigning Heisman Trophy winner?

[2008 National Champ]

No confusion at all. This is a place for all opinions, or at least I think it is.

In my eyes it’s completely ignorant to say the coaches were “wrong” for not picking up a transfer.

That is your opinion. Mine is different. You have your reasons and I have mine. All we know is what happened and to reiterate from my above, neither of us can say how things would have turned out if done in a different way. So in that case, I believe my opinion is just as valid as yours, even if I would never say that you are ignorant.

I don’t have an ego about this stuff. If I did, I would have left long ago based on the volume of people that have told me that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

[EagleMountainUte]

I agree.
But I would say most people should be down voting you.
I think most of us should be confused though. So you really think the Staff had no idea when Rising would be back? You said it in your hypothetical.
When MOST recoveries of triad injuries are 12 months. Even some NFL players are establishing a precedent to sit a year(RIP Jets fans).

So did the GOAT QB lie or was the GOAT Coach entirely surprised by this sudden time table change at week six?

[Charlie]

I still feel like we are guessing in-between assumptions. We don’t know what the surgeon told Cam or if he ever talked to Whitt. We don’t know who in the process maximized the expectations. We don’t know the timeline of discovery. We don’t know what actions were or were not taken related to the portal. We don’t know that Rose could not have simply been one of the surprise freshmen QBs. We don’t know what things encouraged coaches with NJ or what circumstances diminished his progression. I remain curious about the timeline.

All of the possibilities are on the table that range from everyone involved had judgement errors, was not truthful, or simply failed – all the way up to they all had good reason to feel there was a path forward with success that was better than options that really existed. But this is like trying to understand a murder trial with only hearing some of the conversations of people going in and out of the door of the courthouse. There are also clear points that create big questions. It appears Whitt and Cam were trying just recently to get him back into the lineup, why? What are the pieces we don’t know?

What we do know is all the events and circumstances have clearly left us in a pickle.

So, with incomplete information, for me it comes down to who do you want to extend the benefit of doubt to? Maybe it is some but not all three, Lud included. By now you could guess I am an optimist and very willing to trust. I just need to understand more before I am willing to roll up a newspaper and hit anyone involved on the nose yet. Too many times I have seen the worm turn in a football season so I am hopeful it will turn again in a positive direction. But in the interest of full disclosure, I have also remained positive in a 2 and 8 season. At some point someone will post the old GIF of a guy beating a dead horse. I think the Cal game will either provide some relief or take us collectively one more spiral down. Let’s hope for the best.

[The Miami Ute]

Well played Charlie. Pleasure reading your evenhanded comment.

[ORute]

[EagleMountainUte]

Discussing it on an online Fan board isn’t rolling up a newspaper. It is discussing it. Trying to understand why. Why did Whitt think these things and why did Rising do a statement on his injury that should have been done weeks ago.

There are all types of lies. 100% of lies are meant to deceive. We even deceive ourselves upon facing a reality we don’t like. It is psychological basic 101. We form a reality based on how we choose to process information.

Once I found out it was a triad injury diagnosis I immediately changed my tune on the Transfer QB news. Obviously it is all hypothetical on what some random qb may or may not have chosen. BUT when you have that information. You are armed with that information as a coach. I can not justify the reps you give Rising to the detriment of NJ or Barnes or whoever it is going to be. Clearly that is deception depending on your intent. Rising should have never been given reps.

[RoboUte]

“they all had good reason to feel there was a path forward with success that was better than options that really existed”

I love this sentence.

“this is like trying to understand a murder trial with only hearing some of the conversations of people going in and out of the door of the courthouse”

True, but even we out there on the courthouse steps know that only two other people were present when the victim(our season) was murdered. They just so happen to both be people we like, so our fanbase is coming to the silly conclusion that is was neither of them.

[RoboUte]

“So did the GOAT QB lie or was the GOAT Coach entirely surprised by this sudden time table change at week six?”

Yep. It’s really that simple. One or both of them happened. And both are a complete joke. And that’s before considering we thought it best to not have a backup at all.

[RoboUte]

“please stop complaining about how Whitt et al didn’t find the U a quality transfer QB”

No

” What will my playing time look like?
A: Can’t answer”

1. There is never a perfect answer to this question yet people transfer. 2. If our coaching staff couldn’t rub two brain cells together and google a recovery timeline for Cam’s disastrous injury that’s still on them. A bunch of us on this board somehow knew it. And it was far from magic.

“OK, understood. If I do get to play, what kind of media deal does your conference have?”

Said absolutely no recruit ever. This s**t is laughable.