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SALT LAKE CITY — It's no secret what Utah football is trying to accomplish later this fall.
Head coach Kyle Whittingham said it was the first thing talked about when the team reconvened after the 2022 season concluded for the second straight season at the Rose Bowl. In its first meeting in January, Utah began to talk about how it wants to become the first team in the Pac-12 era to three-peat as champions of the conference.
In the storied history of the conference, several teams have accomplished such a feat — USC has done it multiple times, and Oregon was the last to do it from 2009-11 — but none have done it in a championship game setting at the end of the regular season. It may be splitting hairs, but Utah hopes to be the first.
"They're back-to-back Pac-12 champs going for a three-peat, and that's a big challenge," Whittingham said on Tuesday after his team's first practice of spring camp. "So to get back out here today and see the enthusiasm and the excitement, it's what it's all about."
After back-to-back titles, there's no slowing down for Utah — not the work, the expectations, or the insatiable desire to have more.
And all of that begins to manifest itself during spring camp, when the team returns to the field for a month to get limited live work in as it prepares for the ensuing season that features a schedule of 11 of its 12 games against Power Five opponents. That translates to a strong resume for Utah to achieve its lofty goals, but one that will force the Utes to be even better than the year before.
To get better is the name of the game, and one Utah has tried successfully to do over its 12 years in the Pac-12. Utah recently signed its highest-ranked recruiting class and returns nearly 90% of its production on the field. While a majority of the incoming recruiting class won't have an immediate impact on the 2023 season, it will force established players to step up in an even bigger way.
Depth at quarterback
While Utah has a good handle on a majority of its starting positions, spring camp is all about building depth. One of the main positions that Whittingham and his staff remain focused on is that of quarterback Cameron Rising's backup. The Ventura, California, native remains out after an ACL injured he sustained during the Rose Bowl.
Rising is making the right progress in his recovery, Whittingham said, but it's still unknown if the starting quarterback will be available when Utah welcomes Florida to Rice-Eccles Stadium on Aug. 31.
Whether Rising's available to play in the game or not, Utah has a handful of quarterbacks vying for the QB2 spot in a crowded room that features two redshirt freshmen, Nate Johnson and Brandon Rose, an early enrollee freshman in Mack Howard, and Rising's backup the last two seasons, walk-on Bryson Barnes, to say nothing of walk-on Luke Bottari.
While the job of the coaching staff in spring is to identify QB2 — or at least have a better idea going into summer conditioning and fall camp — it's also a head start to identifying the player that could replace Rising when he eventually leaves the program. Each of the quarterbacks will get a fair look in spring, but Whittingham said the primary focus will be on Johnson and Rose.
"It's a complete body of work throughout the whole spring," Whittingham said. "Got a good start today, but as the reps accumulate, we hope to see some separation and make a determination on who's two through five. ... Nate and Rose will get the most. We know what Bryson Barnes is. He's a very good player for us; he's done good things, but we know we have a big sample size on him. But we've got to really hone in on Rose and Nate, see what they can do for us."
Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig said he's excited about the group, who he calls a "very high football intellect group" that has a "varied skill set" that allows Utah to look at different options moving forward. But at the end of the day, Ludwig said a decision will be based on "match" and what the team is doing with "X's and O's with their skill set."
While Johnson had limited reps on the field in a few packages last season, Ludwig said he had one of the hardest quarterback positions on the team considering that he got little reps behind Rising — all while Rose was the quarterback for the scout team that went up against Utah's one's on defense.
"He was the third quarterback — the third quarterback's the most difficult position on the football team, because you're expected to know everything, but you get almost zero reps," Ludwig said. "At least Brandon was able to play the game. You know, Nate was getting his reps and individual and routes versus air, but Brandon Rose is going really against the best defense in the Pac 12 every day. So that's a great learning curve for him — great experience."
That's not to say Rose has a leg up in the competition, but they're coming into spring with different levels of experience, even though both have been with the team for a season — Rose also enrolled early last season and is now going through his second spring with the program.
Safety movement
A week before spring football kicked off, expected free safety starter Clayton Isbell put his name into the transfer portal after a year with the program. Though surprising to all, Whittingham said it isn't a "pressing issue" and that he feels comfortable with the players already in the room to fill Isbell's void.
Whittingham pointed to a safety room that returns strong safety starter Cole Bishop; Sione Vaki, who played a lot of nickel at the end of the 2022 season; Nate Ritchie, who recently returned home from a mission and is acclimating back to the program; as well as early enrollee freshman Johnathan Hall, who is getting early looks at the position.
There's others that have stepped up and can fill the role, but Whittingham is confident they'll have the right mixture of players there to make it work; if not, he said the transfer portal remains a viable solution to "supplement" what the program needs — whether for more depth or for a starting caliber player, though that gets harder to add with just a fall camp.
No more kicking issues?
In the offseason, Utah picked up a placekicker from the transfer portal in Cole Becker, the former placekicker at Colorado. And based on early results, Whittingham is pleased enough to say that the job is already Becker's — or at least it's his job to lose.
And if you've followed the kicking situation over the last couple years — how could you not? — this is a ringing endorsement from Whittingham, who was vocal about the problems Utah had been having, early in the season.
