[Jim Vanderhoof]

Great post proud Ute. It’s nice to see the other side of the NIL portal madness. The type of player you can really root for (even better he is an Olympus high alum like me). Player development and culture has been the calling card of the program since Whitt took over. I know I’ll cheer a little louder when I see that # on the field.

[press-on]

Not wanting to throw shade on Whittingham, but in reflection I’m not nearly as bewitched with ‘the man’ as many on this board. Three conference championships in 20 years. Not bad. Just not great. One of which we can thank a convoluted 2nd place tie-breaker in ’22 for squeaking us into that championship game. And another back in ’08 with a nucleus of Senior talent assembled by and inherited from Urban. All together, not bad. Graded out I would say, he’s somewhere in the solid B range as captain at the helm.

Whitt’s great accomplishment, however, is longevity. He has placed his mark on Utah football for generations and you do have to tip your hat at his ability to win just enough to keep the natives engaged for two decades.

Interestingly, and by way of a rough comparison, Ronny Mac had two championships in 13 years. Ratio wise just about equal to Kyle. But of course, Kyle has had the good fortune to be able to hang around much longer. (And I do use the phrase ‘good fortune’, deliberately).

McBride turned Utah football around. Urban put Utah on The Map. Whittingham kept the Utes in the Game. And the next hire hopefully will establish Utah as a perennial power on the national stage.

Go Utes!

[Hoban Washburne]

What am I missing here?

[Utah Man 3]

Jackson Bennee the walk on safety

[Minnesota Ute]

For most of the past decade, it’s been apples and oranges. What BYU did in the WCC is more analogous to what we did back in the MWC/WAC back in the day. It’s a lot easier to put up a gaudy record and get into the rankings if you don’t play in a conf with a lot of depth. Back in the day, it was Utah and maybe 2 or 3 others (UNM, UNLV, TCU, BYU, etc) in any given year that were good. Similar to Gonzaga St. Mary & BYU. You get 2 to 3 bids a year, you can almost always get one of them.

Since we moved up a notch conf-wise, it’s been a huge struggle. In the P12 specifically, there was a lot of teams beating each other and nobody really rising to the top. In that environment, the name programs (UCLA, Oregon, Arizona, etc) seem to get the benefit of the doubt and unfortunately, we just could never string together enough success to get or keep our name relevant. We even had a couple of years where we might have had an argument for an at large, but alas, our success such as it was came too late in the year to save us, or too early in the season to remain credible.

Quite frankly, I’m really sick of it. I’m am really hoping AJ puts a stop to it, because sucking sucks.

[BeachUte]

I agree it’s apples to oranges but Utah also benefited from a tougher schedule, higher RPI and positioned much stronger for the NCAAs than if they were in a two-bid league.

The reality is that Utah missed the NCAAs at least four times under the last two coaches because of some bad losses that popped their bubble or super weak preseason scheduling that doomed them despite better-than-average finishes in the Pac-12. There is zero excuse for Utah missing the NCAAs despite a top-four finish in the Pac-12 and yet, three-straight seasons Utah missed, and weren’t even a bubble team (2017, 2018 and 2019) despite some seasons teams below them in the Pac-12 getting a bid. Had Utah scheduled properly and proved more competitive with the top of the conference, Larry K would still be coaching here. Alas…

But again, and I can’t stress this enough: this isn’t about BYU. They were but one team mentioned since Utah was put in this imaginary league with them.

Look at Colorado as a program Utah probably could have been with more competent coaching. The Buffaloes entered the conference at the same time as Utah and yet, made the NCAAs seven times to Utah’s two.

Utah has largely been unsuccessful where it counts the most the last fifteen years. Colorado, BYU, SDSU, regardless of their situation, haven’t. So, the point is that I don’t understand the ire of Utah being lumped in with these programs when, for 20 years, they’ve all consistently been better than Utah.

[Minnesota Ute]

My ire is purely aimed at sucking. I have a little ire reserved for being back in the same conference as the zoobs because I am one of those people that don’t enjoy the “rivalry” one iota and would prefer if we never played them again. I know I’m in the minority in that respect, but I find the fact that we are tied at the hip annoying and feel that playing them in any sport at any time is a lose-lose proposition for us most of the time regardless of outcome.

[W16Ute]

Imagine the ’23 season without Vaki on offense… It would have been ugly.

[Utegator]

I think predictive play calling has been an issue for a while. Maybe its just a result of poor QB play though.

[UteThunder]

Given how much of an unknown our WRs are, and how low expectations are for that group, they can make huge strides and still not be good enough to prevent Snowden from being needed to go both ways.

[Author]

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