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

Sep 9, 2024, 12:45 PM

KSL Sports

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

Despite a “not real serious” injury to Cam Rising that kept him out of the second half, Utah took care of business on Saturday with a 23-12 win over Baylor. The program turns its attention to its first road game against the Utah State Aggies.

A Big 12 showdown gets a national audience, as kickoff and TV info has been announced for the Sep. 21 showdown between Utah-Oklahoma State! #GoUtes https://t.co/KMkC165wiB

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) September 9, 2024

To begin the week, 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 Cam Rising, the play, and others

As Whittingham typically does, he held injury clarity close to the vest.

“We don’t give any injury updates unless they’re season-ending,” Whittingham said. “So we won’t say who’s going to play quarterback even when we know, it’s just not how we do it. Other than Cam going out, we seemed to have stayed fairly healthy in that game.”

Coach Whittingham on Cam Rising’s status. pic.twitter.com/vx1BSxIaMh

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) September 7, 2024

When asked about the play that led to Rising’s early exit, Whittingham offered his thoughts after reviewing the play.

“If was the official, I would’ve called it, again if I was the official,” Whittingham said. “The hit started out legal, and as it progressed, it looked like there was arm extension and maybe a little extra shove.”

Despite the lack of clarity on the injury front, it is encouraging that there have not been any season-ending injuries given the program’s experience last season. Still, Keanu Tanuvasa, Jaylon Glover, or Landen King were noticeably absent from most of the game.

Linebacker Karene Reid also exited the game with an injury in the second half. Reid actually let it be known on DJ & PK that despite his injury, he doesn’t anticipate missing a lot of action.

“I’m all good,” Reid responded when asked about his early exit. “I suffered a little bit of a lower-body injury and I don’t plan on missing too much time.”

Two – Concern level with pass game production?

The Utes finished the Baylor game with only 122 passing yards. That’s simply going to be a hindrance for Utah achieving their goals this season if that continues. Rising played about a half and finished 8-of-14 for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

“Well, when Cam is in there, no concern,” Whittingham shared. “We didn’t snap the ball a whole lot of times in the first half. His numbers weren’t too bad for a third, maybe closer to half a game. Had he been able to stay in, we would’ve kept throwing the ball, the numbers would’ve been about right.”

There is obviously a great deal of confidence in the passing game with Rising. Still, Rising even missed some opportunities through the air against Baylor. There is space for improved execution from Utah’s leader.

All in all, Utah needs to produce more through the air and Whittingham knows that. Their goals for the season speak to what they want to accomplish this season.

“If we can be balanced, hit 225, 250, hit 300 (pass yards per game) some weeks (that’s the goal),” Whittingham said. “If we can finish 3,000 throwing and 2,000, probably 2,500 rushing that would be about ideal for us.”

Three – The optimism around Isaac Wilson

Throughout the press conference, there were a couple of votes of confidence from Whittingham with the true freshman.

“Isaac, just speaking of him, I thought he played better this last game than he did the previous week. He had more command, had more confidence, I think he came in and held down the fort for us.”

He entered the game just before halftime and played the entire second half. He finished the game 4-of-9 for 30 yards, most of which came on a 17-yard reception for Money Parks.

“I think he’s going to continue to get better, I certainly believe that, and we have a lot of confidence in him. He’s just not ready to go out and throw the ball 45 times, especially against a team like Baylor.” – Kyle Whittingham on Isaac Wilson.

After the game, Wilson made it clear that he needed and wanted to be better for his teammates. He made it clear that he needed to be ready, whenever his name is called. He got the job done but there is room for improvement in his play. Whittingham shared that there could be a noticeable difference in Wilson’s play if he does end up being the guy this week, simply due to the fact of him getting more practice reps.

“When you split the reps in practice between the 1’s and 2’s it’s not 50-50, it’s more like 80-20 or 70-30,” Whittingham shared. “You’re trying to get the first guy tuned up completely, then get the second guy as many reps as you can. And I think what will help Isaac is if he gets the 80% or 70% of the reps all week long.”

Four – Desire for more out of the run game

Given that Utah needed to rely on the run more in this game than probably planned for prior to kickoff, it’s fairly surprising to hear the need for more. Utah produced 170 yards on the ground, at an average of 4.6 yards per game but Whittingham still believes the run game needs to be better.

“Five yards a carry is my personal benchmark per carry for the run game,” Whittingham said. “I do think we fit the run game better this game, obviously the degree of difficulty was higher- it was a pretty stout front seven, but I still think there is more for us in the run game.”

The offensive line actually improved the amount of clean yardage for running backs from 2.54 to 3.0 from week one to week two. Given the increased level of competition, that’s an impressive job. That seems to indicate the running backs need to be better at identifying creases and open yardage.

Five – Respect for the Pig Farmer

Whittingham still holds a great deal of respect for Bryson Barnes.

On what the Pig Farmer meant… “He was a great member of our program, great teammate. Beat SC last year. Just a competitive, tough, high-character individual.”

— Steve Bartle (@BartleKSLsports) September 9, 2024