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SALT LAKE CITY — Kyle Whittingham's general rule of thumb is that he will not discuss individual injuries on his team unless an injury is season-ending.
He may not get into specifics, but the University of Utah head coach will often lead you down the right path if there is an individual injury worth discussing.
Take the last few days for example.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Brandon Rose, the presumed opening-night starter against Florida on Aug. 31 if Cam Rising's surgically-repaired ACL keeps him shelved, revealed on Friday night in an Instagram post that he suffered an undisclosed injury. The post indicated that there was a hospital stay, which paints the injury as not run-of-the-mill, and potentially serious enough to keep Rose out for at least weeks, not just days.
Fast forward to Tuesday morning, when the first question during Whittingham's meeting with the media was about Rose's status. Whittingham balked, instead diving into the fact "the team is a little bit beat up as you'd expect 14 days in."
Fair enough, but then Whittingham took everyone down the path.
Whittingham said the current QB pecking order coming out of Thursday's first live scrimmage is Bryson Barnes taking the majority of the first-team reps, with Nate Johnson taking the majority of the second-team reps. No mention of Rose, which may lend credence to the notion that he won't be available soon. Rising is taking first-team reps when he is allowed to, but that has not included live, fully-padded team periods yet.
"Bryson Barnes, right now, if we had to play today, it would be Bryson Barnes," Whittingham said matter-of-factly.
One point of emphasis from pockets of the fan base since Friday's injury revelation was whether or not Rose, not to mention the rest of the QBs, were live during a scrimmage. Whittingham's reasoning is sound.
"It depends; it goes both ways," Whittingham said. "If you're an established guy like Cam, you're not going to get hit at all. If you're a younger guy, then we need to find out what your ability is to extend plays, because you don't get a true flavor of that or a true read on that unless you make them live. You don't know what they could have gotten out of and what they couldn't have, so it's just a case-by-case basis and how much we need to find out about a certain individual."
Whittingham did concede that his young QBs were live for the first scrimmage, but that will not be the case when the Utes scrimmage for the second time Thursday. To Whittingham's point of needing to see what the young guys can do, Rose has never taken a collegiate snap after running the scout team for the final 75% of last season, while Johnson attempted one pass in four appearances late last season.
This is all, of course, a backdrop to the fact that Rising, who tore his ACL in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2, remains a limited participant in practice, Whittingham confirmed Tuesday. He said previously that Rising would be limited for at least the first couple of weeks of fall camp, but being limited has now bled into the third week.
Whittingham indicated last week that he would be willing to wait up until a week before the opener for Rising to be fully healthy and ready to play. One week before the opener is next Thursday, Aug. 24. Whittingham will not speak to the media again until Aug. 28, three days before the Gators visit Rice-Eccles Stadium, which marks the program's first nonconference game outside the state of Florida since Steve Spurrier took his 1991 team to Syracuse University.
