Utes mailbag: Can Barnes, Johnson beat Baylor, or does Utah need Rising back?

SALT LAKE CITY — After months of offseason quarterback questions at the University of Utah, Bryson Barnes played well in the season opener vs. the University of Florida, while Nate Johnson offered a nice change-of-pace complement.

That opening salvo, though, as optimistic as it was with Cam Rising still shelved, has predictably led to more questions with the Utes headed to Waco this weekend to face Baylor Saturday morning.

We'll start this Utes mailbag right there.

Q: "After the Florida game, do you feel more confidence in the Barnes/Johnson QB tandem, or a higher sense of urgency to get Cam back as soon as possible?" - @joshua_rooker

Both?

I think everyone should have left the Florida game thinking at least a couple of things after watching Barnes at the wheel, with Johnson making some cameos.

Cam Rising is practicing fully this week, which means he is getting closer to debuting, but if it's Barnes/Johnson again at Baylor, first, the offense needs to be a lot better. Some of that is on the players, some of that is on offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig; although I'm sure Ludwig didn't go too deep into the bag against Florida, mostly because he didn't need to.

Second, I think after watching Barnes/Johnson, you should feel better about what that looks like, or what the ceiling might be if they have to go out there again and win a ball game. I wrote/said for months that Barnes, or Brandon Rose, was capable of beating Florida but would need a lot of help around them. Barnes did not get a ton of help, including the amount of injuries Utah is dealing with, and won the game anyway, which I think bodes well.

Rising will not be rushed back into action by anyone, but all of this said, yes, there should be a sense of urgency to get him back in there because Utah is not accomplishing its primary team goals this fall without its No. 1 quarterback. That's not a knock on Barnes, who is now 2-0 as a starter, but an objective notion no one would disagree with.

You can like what you saw out of Barnes/Johnson and feel optimistic about Saturday if they're out there again, while recognizing those two are not giving you what a healthy Rising does.

My big question once Rising is ready is what kind of role Johnson plays at that point. I suspect we still see Johnson in some sort of situational role, but probably not taking over entire series as he did vs. Florida.

Q: "How does Baylor's starting QB being out change the game next Saturday?" - @ngde09

For the unaware, Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen will miss at least two weeks with an MCL injury suffered in Saturday's loss to Texas State. That means redshirt sophomore Sawyer Robertson will get his first career start Saturday against Utah.

Robertson was 6-of-12 for 113 yards and an interception in relief of Shapen in Saturday's loss.

You've rarely, if ever, seen me dive into football X's and O's, and that's not going to be the case here, either.

Let's not overthink this. Utah's defense, missing most of its starting front four against Florida, still managed five sacks and made Graham Mertz look like what Mertz has looked like for much of his career, pedestrian, despite Mertz putting up gaudy numbers.

Now, enter Robertson, who is new to Baylor offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes' offense and will now have to operate against Utah's defense. He will do so behind a Bears offensive line that looked, at best, shaky against Texas State.

If you're Utah, you'd rather have to deal with Robertson than Shapen. Yes, I'd say that injury changes this game quite a bit because if the Utes can stop the run, there's no proof that Robertson can carry the load.

Q: "I'm curious. Now that Deion has his first win and players believe, I think they will do well. What happens when this team hits a bump in the road, or some adversity? Do we know enough about them to make a guess? I'll hang up and listen to your thoughts." - @ShortStackUte

Week 1 of the college football season is often a mirage, so while Shedeur Sanders looked like he belongs in the Heisman Trophy discussion, and Travis Hunter looked like a somehow-more-complete version of Georgia-era Champ Bailey, let's pump the brakes.

There will be losses, there will be adversity. Frankly, I look forward to seeing how that goes because Deion has already said, and I'm paraphrasing, his team doesn't need culture, just good players. That locker room is screaming for a documentary film crew once the first loss hits, whether it's this weekend vs. Nebraska or further down the road.

Who knows how the players will react, but I think we all know how Deion will react: confident, arrogant, probably bombastic.

His calling out a reporter Saturday postgame at TCU after what was nothing short of a shocking victory was unprofessional, but it was also part of the full Deion experience. What has to happen now is, after a loss, he has to be willing to sit there and answer questions about what happened. He has to be willing to hold himself accountable in bad times after he made the good times about himself on Saturday.

I'm not holding my breath.

Q: "It felt like at times, Bryson Barnes was getting into a groove and then they would put Nate Johnson in. Do you think if Barnes keeps playing well, he will eventually just take that role over and Johnson will be the "backup"? - @Reilly_kb93

Once upon a time, I covered a lot of Rutgers games when the QB situation was unsettled and you had multiple guys playing, sometimes in the same series. More times than not, the series in which multiple QBs took snaps were clunky and yielded very little in the way of positive outcomes.

I'm not a fan of it, and you're right, there was a time or two against Florida where Barnes had a little groove going and in came Johnson. In this particular case, though, their skill sets and capabilities are so radically different that it's hard to argue when you pull one for the other, even if it's in the same series.

Hypothetically, let's say Barnes starts a series and drives Utah into or to the edge of the red zone, or you're deep in the red zone and it's third-and-short, or you're near the goal line. Sure, put in Johnson, at least as a decoy. No argument there.

As for the actual question, I think I just answered it. If Barnes starts again and plays well again, you're still going to see Johnson, at least situationally. He's too good with his legs, too capable of doing something explosive every time he touches the ball, and the trust from the coaching staff is growing.

As I noted above in a previous question, I wonder what Johnson's role looks like once Rising is ready.

Q: "How exciting is it that we're kicking field goals, making extra points and dropping bombs for punts? Changes our game a lot, I think. Hell, we even attempted a 55-yarder." - @RedSoxRooskie

After Barnes hit Money Parks on Utah's opening play for a 70-yard touchdown pass, Utes kicker Cole Becker booted a touchback and the crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium semi-jokingly cheered.

If you know, you know.

Utah's place-kicking situation was a mess for most of the last two seasons, but here comes Becker, a Colorado transfer who Kyle Whittingham has had nothing but positive things to say since early in spring practice. Even back then, there was a sense that Becker was going to be a real upgrade.

Becker's 51-yard field goal late in the second quarter aside, the more-interesting moment came when he missed the 55-yarder early in the fourth quarter.

Utah faced fourth-and-9 from the Florida 37-yard line and sent Becker out there for the field goal try; he had enough leg, but missed wide. The interesting part is they tried that field goal at all, because it's hard to believe that would have been allowed to happen last season. More than a couple of times, especially down the stretch, Utah was going for it in similar situations with similar field positions, an indication that trust in its kicking game had eroded.

As for punting, yeah, same thing. It was a mess in 2021, and a little better in 2022, but Jack Bouwmeester booting punts of 61 and 64 yards, respectively, while averaging 51.8 yards on six punts is a drastic departure from the last two seasons.

Utah would rather not punt six times in a game, but if you have to, doing what Bouwmeester did in the opener is probably what Whittingham would prefer.

Q: "300 yards passing for the Gators. A problem?" - @Burn47072492Ken

The fact Graham Mertz threw for 333 yards against Utah is hollow. Of those yards, 108 came in the first quarter, and 220 of them came in the second half when Florida was trailing and throwing without the benefit of a competent rushing attack.

Furthermore, a lot of those second-half yards came on bubble screens, which means YAC, which means Mertz wasn't exactly slinging it all over the place.

If you want to take that 333-yard effort on its face and not add the context, that's fine, too, but this is where we remind you that Utah was missing a lot on defense, including Karene Reid, who exited in the first quarter with what appeared to be a head injury.

No, this is not a problem yet because any way we slice this, one game is just too small of a sample size. Now, if Sawyer Robertson carves up Utah on Saturday, and if whoever UCLA trots out there on Sept. 23 does some damage, OK, then it's a thing, but certainly not yet.

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