[2008 National Champ]

5′ 11 1/2″, 165 lbs.,, cue the Jordan Wynn, Tyler Huntley every year injury flashbacks

[2008 National Champ]

I just don’t think that the timing of the portal window(s) or how long they are open matter. Until the underlying problem of neither school nor player having any binding contractual commitment to each other gets fixed, you could have a one day a year window on June 1 or a 6 month window from April to the end of September and you will see roughly the same amount of kids put their names in every year.

Coaches still need to have the same conversations with all of their players to gauge whether they will leave in January as they would for December. It would be coaching malpractice not to.

Kids don’t just magically look at the calendar in late November and decide to transfer. Those decisions are constantly being weighed based on playing time, payments, whether they just broke up with their girlfriend, if a coach called them out in practice.,, And any kid who has made up his mind to transfer isn’t going to risk a future payday to play in a bowl game. At least not any more than they are willing to now.

The Letter of Intent each player signed used to bind them to the schools. That’s what needs to be replaced. And it needs to have equal consideration for both player and school.

[2008 National Champ]

I’m projecting Hall to make a Devin Lloyd type leap from 1st to 2nd year and with his throw game skills should allow Snowden to move outside since the nickel won’t be as necessary.

[2008 National Champ]

I don’t think I know enough about this year’s team to make a prediction so I’m staying out of that game.

I do wonder why people think that the number of transfers Utah will be counting on this season to make big impacts is a positive but then use the reliance on transfers as a reason why other schools will lose to Utah. Haven’t we all convinced ourselves that development is the Utah strength instead of having systems that kids can come in and be immediately successful?

[2008 National Champ]

Just goes to show that if the goal is to make it to the league, you should go at your first opportunity. Kuithe and Rising should have both gone after 2021 and would have been mid-rounders

[2008 National Champ]

7-5 would be the only possible outcome then.,,

[2008 National Champ]

Roughly equivalent to telling your high school girlfriend that of course you’d be together forever.

[2008 National Champ]

Michael Johnson

The height isn’t really the issue, whether just under or just over 6 feet. 165 pounds won’t play at the P4 level

[2008 National Champ]

Rick, I think you’re making my point with the 2020 injury. Whitt didn’t have to announce Rising’s injury, but it was made clear that it was season ending. We all moved on to the next option instead of speculating on when QB1 would be back.

Counter that with 2023 where after 4 weeks of “he’s splitting 1st team reps” and “we’re doing everything we can to get him on the field”, they went to the extreme of suiting Rising up at Oregon State for pre-game warmups. Which, as we found out ~ 3 weeks later, was all a ruse because he still hadn’t been fully cleared by his surgeon.

I hold no ill will towards Rising and I am still glad Whitt is coaching Utah. But this has all been a self-inflected error. So, to circle back to @Asmitty, both Rising and Whitt were willing participants in the subterfuge(s).

[2008 National Champ]

I’m not sure that’s necessarily true about making his life a living hell, but if it was it was enabled by the way his injury and his previous injury were handled. Both in 2023 and 2024 the word from Whitt and the rest of the staff was that he was always a game-time decision. And since a “large group of our fan base” takes every word that comes out of Whitt’s mouth as holy writ, when he wouldn’t play in games he became the focus of those same fans’ ire.

The policy of not talking about injuries unless they are season ending has bitten Whitt on the tookus the last 2 years and I’ve never seen it be the competitive advantage that he seems to think it is.

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