Top Five Takeaways From Utah Football’s Kyle Whittingham Week Two Press Conference

Sep 2, 2024, 1:00 PM | Updated: 1:06 pm

KSL Sports

SALT LAKE CITY – On Monday, Utah Football head coach Kyle Whittingham addressed members of the media in his week two press conference of 2024.

Utah took care of business on Thursday with a 49-0 win over Southern Utah. The program now turns its attention to Saturday’s showdown with the Baylor Bears. It’ll be a non-conference game for the Utes and Big 12 Homecoming week.

We’re on a bear hunt this 𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗞

🏟️: Rice-Eccles Stadium
⏰: 1:30PM MT
📺: FOX
📻: ESPN 700 AM / 92.1 FM#GoUtes pic.twitter.com/J8pjcqncIv

— Utah Football (@Utah_Football) September 2, 2024

To begin the week, Kyle Whittingham met with the media as he always does. After the 15-minute presser, here are five key takeaways from Utah’s head coach press conference.

One – Status updates on Kenan Johnson and Aliki Vimahi

There were two significant injuries in Thursday night’s contest. Cornerback Kenan Johnson and defensive tackle Aliki Vimahi both exited the game with apparent knee injuries. Whittingham confirmed what was feared with Johnson but offered a silver lining and a positive update on Vimahi.

Though Johnson is lost for the season, there were a couple of positive updates from head coach Kyle Whittingham on that injury front. https://t.co/UEokAv4Pe5

— Steve Bartle (@BartleKSLsports) September 2, 2024

On Johnson’s injury: “Unfortunately, (Johnson’s injury) is season-ending, yeah, season-ending,” Whittingham shared. “If there is a silver lining, he will be able to get another year. We haven’t had that discussion yet, it depends on what he wants to do and how he wants to handle it. The feedback I’ve gotten is that it would be a slam dunk if he wants to go down that road.”

On Vimahi’s injury: “Aliki went out and it’s not season-ending, so that’s the extent of what we’ll comment on that. We feared there for a while that it was maybe extremely serious but looks like he’s going to be back with us at some point.”

Two – What is Utah’s plan at cornerback now?

Whittingham also addressed what the plan could be at cornerback moving forward. Coaches have not determined exactly what they’re going to do just yet, that will come over the next couple of days of practice. However, he offered some potential options for them.

“Smith Snowden played exceptionally well at the nickel spot, on the inside,” Whittingham shared. “He is very capable of playing on the outside as well, so you might see that happen.”
“Scooby Davis came in and gave us some good reps. We get Cam (Calhoun) back, he’s back with us this week at corner. That’ll give us another guy that had a very good spring and showing promise.”
“Right now, we don’t have the exact answer or configuration but we’ll take a look at the configurations in practice and determine in the next day or two what the best one is going to be.”

Three – Dijon Stanley’s future role and impact

The breakout performance of the season-opener was running back Dijon Stanley. He outran the SUU defense on 64-yard and 79-yard touchdown receptions in the first half. He ended up with 150 yards on 3 receptions, while leading the team in rushing with 34 yards on 6 carries.

What’s going to be his role moving forward?

“He sure was productive Thursday night and was a big play guy for us. It’s really like a first-tier with those three guys (Micah Bernard, Jaylon Glover, Mike Mitchell) and then an asterisk-plus Dijon’s package of plays. Don’t think he’s quite yet ready as an every-down type of back. He certainly will have an expanded package as the season goes if he continues to have the impact that he did last week.”

With 184 yards of offense on 9 touches in the game, Utah would be foolish not to continue to give him opportunities. He will have those and his role will be determined by how impactful he continues to be.

Without a doubt though, Doodie has some serious game-changing potential.

Four – It’s a balancing act for targets between WR & TE

“One thing that is a big positive is that we have the luxury of being able to attack in different ways and have a lot of weapons for Cam and Coach Ludwig to utilize.”

Having those options is the most important thing for the Utah offense this season. There are multiple players capable of contributing in the WR & TE rooms. From there, it’s all determined on the matchup week-to-week and even snap-to-snap.

Utah has a quarterback that is good at identifying where to go with the ball. That led to Kuithe getting the ball a lot on Thursday. Moving forward, other matchups will determine other guys having advantageous situations.

“Some weeks the tight ends will be more involved, or more of the core of the plan, some weeks it’s wide receivers,” he said. “I think it’s matchups and the type of defense that we’re facing, their personnel- are they playing nickel, they playing 4-3, all that stuff goes into play.”

After Whittingham stated that receiver Dorian Singer is the focal point of the passing attack, there is a lot of interest in seeing what that actually looks like. Whittingham reiterated that those performances will come but everything is matchup-based.

Five – Cam Rising’s judiciousness was better than initially believed

Perhaps the most surprising dynamic in Utah’s contest on Thursday was Rising’s mobility. He finished the game with 4 runs for 25 yards, which included a long of 11 yards for a 1st down, as well as another run weaving through traffic.

Rising’s mobility has been a big discussion point all offseason. There is a desire for Rising to be more judicious in how often he runs and puts himself in harm’s way. However, Rising has maintained that he’s only focused on playing football.

After a review of the film on Thursday night, Whittingham felt better about Rising’s decision-making in regards to those runs.

“I will say this, after watching the film, it wasn’t as bad- I shouldn’t say as bad, he was smart most of the time. His competitive mentality comes out during those situations oftentimes, he wants to get that extra yard. He’s a guy, when he’s in the lineup, we’re a much better football team. We don’t want to beat it to death and not be afraid of everything, or so concerned about it that affects his play in other areas. So, after watching the film, yeah I wish maybe once or twice he could have gotten a little more out of harm’s way but he is one of the most competitive guys you’ll ever come across. It’s going to be tough to completely say ‘hey, you’re never going to do that’ because it’s going to happen every once in a while.”