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SALT LAKE CITY — The jersey may say Texas across the front, but it’s just another opponent to No. 11 Utah’s backup quarterback Cameron Rising.
“It’s just another football game,” he says, paying little attention to the storied franchise or program where he spent the first year of his collegiate career before transferring to Utah in January. Really, his stint in Texas was a layover to Rising’s final destination of Utah where he hopes to eventually be the team’s starting quarterback.
Still, it’s where Rising called home and developed friendships with a majority of the team Utah will face on New Year’s Eve in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas.
“It's just another game, I'm not really paying too much mind to it. It's just a team that I happened to be on last year, that's it,” he said. “I talk to a lot of those guys all the time, and even talked about hanging out with them a little bit while we're in San Antonio together.
“It's a great group of guys; I still have a lot of love for them in,” Rising added. “And honestly, I look forward to going back out there and get to see some of them.”
The final game of the season for the Utes, though, will be the first for Rising’s career at Utah. Senior quarterback Tyler Huntley will be the team’s starter as Utah looks to closeout the season with 12 wins, but Rising, who has spent the season on the scout team due to NCAA transfer rules, will be eligible to play in the bowl game while still redshirting the season.
Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said Rising has been moved from the scout team and is now splitting reps with the other backup quarterbacks, Jason Shelley and Drew Lisk. But Shelley has been spending time with the defensive secondary unit in bowl practices and could be utilized on the other side of the ball, and Rising could slip into the QB2 role.
“Yeah we can just say go in, and just say go and play; he'll be ready to do that,” Whittingham said of Rising. “But he's going to be up to speed. He'll have, what 13-14 practice under his belt working with the travel squad. And he will definitely be ready to go if we need him.”
It’s an opportunity for Rising to potentially get some in-game reps as he enters spring conditioning as the most experienced quarterback in the locker room should Shelley stay on defense. And though there’s no guarantee he’ll play in the Alamo Bowl, the opportunity still exists, and Utah could send out a player that Texas has not seen in offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig’s offense.
Whittingham has said, and several other reports from Rising’s time on the scout team corroborate, the redshirt sophomore has what it takes to command Utah’s offense moving forward. In his role as the scout team quarterback, alongside starting receiver Britain Covey, Rising has learned to go against one of the best defenses in the country.
“That's a damn good defense now. It's hard to go against,” Rising said. “I've been doing a great job and, in some cases, even better than some of the teams that we went against earlier in the week, and so it's been a fun experience and just glad I got to experience all that.”
“He's looked good, I can say that for certain,” Whittingham said. “He's looked really good.”
And though Rising is no guarantee at being next year’s starting quarterback, he’s working to improve the quarterback room to bring in more talent, even if it means he’s helping to recruit someone that could start over him. Utah recently welcomed graduate transfer Jake Bentley from South Carolina to the program last week.
Bentley is a former four-star recruit that amassed 7,527 passing yards and 55 touchdowns in his four years at South Carolina. He completed 62.5% of his passes over his career before suffering a season-ending injury his senior season. The two, along with Shelley, will vie for the starting job in 2020.
“At the end of the day, it's a team. It's a team sport,” Rising said. “One guy can go down so you always want to have the best at each position. Whether it's first string, backup, anything like that, so just making sure that the team is as good as possible and having a good quarterback room.
“Iron sharpens iron, and it just makes everyone better,” he added. “It makes the team better as a unit just having as good of players as you can have.”
Should his name be called in the Alamo Bowl against his former team or at a later date, Rising said he’s “a competitor — a guy that's going to compete each down and try to put the team in the best position to win.”
Utah kicks off its final game of the season against Texas on Dec. 31 at 5:30 p.m. MST. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
