Whitt’s presser

[ProudUte]

I missed the first 2-3 minutes.

Oregon is a top 5 team in his opinion.

We went from our best to one of our worst productions on offense. He said he takes the blame for that.

Bryson Barnes is our QB right now.

Rose still running the scout team. If he had not missed all that time, he may be in the mix. He acted like it was a possibility we may see him before the season is done, but it is not the plan.

Everyone on the team knows that we did not play well.

We cannot let someone beat us twice.

ASU plays very good defense. We expect a big challenge.

If your signals are stolen during the game – that’s your fault. If someone steals our signals, then we need to fix it.

Coaches need to make a game plan to put us in better decisions. I will not blame the players for what happened.

It was great having GameDay here. I wish we would have played better. Cam represented us well on the ESPN shows.

He doesn’t think that there was an emotional letdown after the USC game.

After a loss – we always look to what we as coaches can do better and play to our strengths.

He thought tackling was bad, but after watching the film – we only missed 11 tackles.

Vaki was not feeling well on Saturday. He was not overworked. He only had about 65 reps.

The special teams played well.

We lost the turnover margin which was bad. We just didn’t have a lot of impact plays on D which is a lot to do with Bo Nix being so good and getting rid of the ball so quickly.

[Ghost of the HEB]

Really sucks that we’re likely not gonna see Rose at all. We know we can’t go into 2024 relying on Nate and Bryson again. Even if Cam comes back we don’t know what he’ll look like coming off a knee blender and missing so much time. Would be nice to see what we have in Rose before the offseason.

[DataUte]

We aren’t, but the coaches will. And they don’t care about our judgement or criticism on who we think should be the starter, backup, if they made the right decisions, etc.

[Xanthis]

Based on this press conference I don’t think Rose was as close to the #2 as believed. If he was the starter until injury I would think Whitt wouldn’t be so against him getting a shot.

[EagleMountainUte]

Lipstick on a pig analogy can be taken to a deeper level with Whitt I think.

My only question is why do you keep putting lipstick on that pig? WHO would keep trying to put lipstick on a pig? And finally HOW because it clearly isn’t working. It is is a PIG!

[Charlie]

Not sure I know what you are looking at. Other than the spring game I have not been able to get a read at all on Rose, certainly nothing that would get me on the road to a pig. I would be happy to see him in a game but half the opponents going forward would be a though way to start.

[EagleMountainUte]

Whitt is only enamored with one pig on the team.

[highlandute7]

I wish we would have seen Johnson play the 4th quarter vs UO just to see what could have done. Sure, he has his flaws, just like BB has. We don’t beat UF and Baylor without Nate. At this point, I would not be at all surprised to see Johnson and Rose hit the portal, regardless of what Cam ends up doing, unless someone can convince Johnson to switch positions.

Like Ghost noted, it would be nice to see what we have with Rose before the season ends. Giving him a shot at some point in the last 4 games you think would be on the table.

[Utah]

There is a reason why we didn’t see Johnson: Whitt doesn’t like how often Johnson turns the ball over. Barnes turns the ball over less. Barnes beat USC. Whitt knows Johnson can win you a game, but is more likely to lose you the game.

Barnes is safe. Whitt knows 9 wins is still on the table and if you can get the run game going, you can beat everyone left on the schedule. Why play Johnson vs Oregon, have him get a TD (and probably an fumble or INT) and then have to deal with everyone clamoring to have Johnson start?

Barnes still has goodwill. And he won’t lose you any games. And if you can get a run game going, Barnes can win the rest of your games.

That’s why we didn’t see Johnson.

[highlandute7]

The game was over in the 4th quarter. Why not give Johnson a shot at that point? I didn’t say to have Johnson start but why keep Barnes in the game at that point?

[Utah]

Because if Johnson looks good, then we all want Johnson and Whitt doesn’t want Johnson.

[Xanthis]

Barnes has thrown an INT in almost every game. I wouldn’t say he is safe with the ball.

[highlandute7]

Just to put it out there, Barnes has thrown 5 INTs this year.

Johnson has thrown 0.

Their completion % is about the same and as a team, they have only lost 1 fumble all season.

[EagleMountainUte]

I am sick of hearing about how good Oregon is. Utah could have been a top ten team. Offensive deficiency again.

[The Miami Ute]

Can someone explain to me in simple language, so that I can understand it, why Rose isn’t even getting a sniff of the field? If he’s healthy and has command of the playbook, why haven’t we seen him at times that the other QBs struggle? The only thing I can think of is that his Spring Game performance was a mirage and not a real reflection of his abilities.

[Charlie]

My best guess relates to the bye week and at that point they believed Barnes gave the best chance to win. Barnes also got the start in the Florida game but without Rose as a possibility. The Cal game and USC game provided hope, not accounting for Vaki. Maybe we could have had the same results with Johnson or Rose in the game. The result with Oregon might be likely the same with any of the three.

Going forward, any of the three or Howard can run the scout team. If Rose did pull ahead of Johnson and Barnes in spring and summer and is now healthy, I would expect him to get looks. To do that, Rose would need to move to the second spot and take reps with the 2s. Any of the three should be able to beat ASU at home so I think the coaches can set up the best option now to win at Washington and Az. I agree, Miami, at what point do we go back to the summer peeking order that was reversed by injury? We can only guess what becomes the tipping point. I lean into wanting to see that happen.

[The Miami Ute]

Thanks Charlie. Obviously, not being in the Utah inner circle gives a lot of room for conjecture. I just keep going back to the Spring Game and remembering how Rose performed vis-à-vis Barnes and Johnson. If Rose wasn’t head and shoulders above the other two in that game, it wasn’t far from that. I remember coming away from that game feeling that, if Rising wasn’t available for the first part of the season, at least we were in good hands with Rose. Then came his unfortunate injury and his subsequent banishment to the Scout Team. Did his performance drop off after the injury? Were there disciplinary issues involved? We’ll probably never know. However, it just seems super strange to me that a guy that was the anointed #2 behind Rising, going into the season, has not played at all.

[Charlie]

To continue to guess… I think after the injury we simply had to get ready for the season without Rose. I don’t know who ran the scout team for prep for the first few games. I think Rose started practice about the end of September which is about the time following the OSU game and the switch from NJ to Barnes. Possibly he still needed time and so I understand the momentum with Barnes. During that time Rose was the scout team player of the week for USC which is strange to me because the key prep would be around CW and Rose is not a scrambler or so I thought.

Now the dilemma, the plan for Rose was to redshirt. If he plays the medical redshirt is gone. I assume 2022 was a regular redshirt so anything related to playing 4 games and redshirting is gone. Rose may be choosing a path that is best for him personally, which is fine. But I would expect that he would jump at the chance to play. I don’t think he is in the dog house for discipline.

[Xanthis]

Whitt keeps talking about Rose getting a redshirt. The thing is Rose already used his redshirt. He doesn’t have a season ending injury and isn’t getting a medical RS for this season either.

Is Whitt getting bad information or is it just coach speak for something else?