Utah going to transfer portal for Rising insurance never made sense. Just ask Whittingham

SALT LAKE CITY — Cam Rising has yet to debut this fall for the University of Utah. He has yet to debut, when he might debut continues to be a mystery, and if he will debut at all as October wears on is beginning to come into focus as a legitimate concern.

The constant speculation, the expected lack of answers from inside the Eccles Football Center, and the realization that Utah's bid for a Pac-12 championship three-peat may be buried before Halloween without Rising have all been constant sources of frustration and anger for the fan base.

When you're frustrated and angry, sometimes you look for someone to blame.

In this case, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham has drawn some ire for what has been perceived as not having a good-enough backup plan if Rising was not ready for the Aug. 31 season-opener vs. Florida. More specifically, knowing that Rising faced months-long rehab, why didn't Utah hit the NCAA Transfer Portal looking for an insurance policy?

"No, we were expecting that we'd be set, and I don't know who we could have attracted knowing that Cam was coming back," Whittingham said Monday during his weekly press conference when asked directly if they tried to recruit a QB out of the transfer portal in the offseason. "That's another thing, who's going to come sit behind Cam?

"If you're in the portal, you're in the portal to go play somewhere, not sit again or whatever you're doing at your first school, but yeah, it was not an ideal situation for really any quarterback to come to us this past offseason."

Whittingham's assertion on how the transfer portal mostly operates in terms of quarterbacks is correct. Furthermore, he made it clear as far back as late February, roughly five weeks after Rising had surgery to repair a torn meniscus, ACL, MCL, and MPFL ligaments suffered in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2, that if and when he is ready to play, the offense belongs to Rising.

To echo Whittingham, with an early indication that the sixth-year senior would play when healthy, no, a viable QB option out of the portal didn't have much of a reason to look at, let alone consider Utah, unless that player was willing to wait his turn, which is not generally the norm.

"I'm going to tell you right now, it's much harder to maintain quality backups in your program because of the portal," Whittingham said. "Quarterbacks don't want to sit; and if they think they should be playing, they're not going to hang around as a No. 2 or No. 3, and so they're going to be on the move. That's a very fluid position, a lot of transition. That room has more change from year to year than any room and I'm sure in anybody's building just because of the nature of how that works."

There was one uncontrollable consequence when Whittingham committed to Rising as his starter when ready. It meant his backup, whoever it was between Bryson Barnes, Nate Johnson or Brandon Rose, would be inexperienced, which always felt ominous with a rugged early schedule that included Florida and Baylor to open.

Following a mid-camp injury, Rose was out of the mix. Barnes started and won the opener, with Johnson making situational cameos, but he was eventually benched for Johnson at Baylor, who himself was benched in favor of Barnes at Oregon State. Barnes is now hurt, and if Rising cannot play Saturday vs. Cal, it will be Johnson under center.

Through it all, Utah is 4-1 overall, but the offense has looked nothing short of cumbersome without Rising, ranking last in the Pac-12 and 125th nationally in total offense, and last in the Pac-12 and 121st nationally in passing offense.

"This day and age, if you have a solid No. 2, you're in good shape — and not to say we don't, but it's just more difficult because of the portal and quarterbacks being on the move and where only one can be on the field," Whittingham said.

Related topics