Player Leadership Will Be Key For Utah Football To Make Run At Big 12 Championship
Aug 2, 2024, 11:58 AM
SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Football team have already reconvened for fall camp as they begin their final preparations for the 2024 season. As the offseason has progressed and now has included the first media availabilities of fall camp, there is no mistaking Utah’s goal for the season. The players and coaches have made it abundantly clear that this team is focused on winning the Big 12 Championship and punching their ticket to the College Football Playoff.
And Kyle Whittingham’s program is poised to do that with what they return from two conference championship-winning teams in recent history. That experience and know-how having won big games is a significant advantage.
Additions To Utah Football Roster
Though there are a lot of experienced veterans returning, there is a significant chunk of the roster that is new to the program.
All those new faces means new talent, new dynamics, and new options for coaches to utilize. Depth is vital to any championship run and the focus through the early part of fall camp is identifying who can contribute and shore that up. Whether it be the game-changing talents, proven veterans, dependable contributors, or the young up-and-comers –every single player is important when contending at the highest level.
Utes’ Team Leadership For First Year In Big 12
Experience, talent, and depth are all important parts of the equation but perhaps more important than each of those factors is leadership. Exactly how important is that dynamic for a team, particularly the leadership from the players?
“It cannot be overstated, it’s absolutely critical to have great player leadership,” Whittingham said of its importance. “If you’ve got no leadership, you’re going to be a bad team. If you’ve got coach leadership, you’re going to be okay. If you’ve got player leadership, you’ve got a chance to be great.”
A couple minutes from the head man, Kyle Whittingham. pic.twitter.com/lheSuI3EG6
— Steve Bartle (@BartleKSLsports) July 29, 2024
“That’s what we talk about constantly here –having the players own the program and having a player-run program, in a positive way. We’ve got plenty of good leaders here and we expect that to be case this year.”
That player leadership has always been key to Utah’s success over the years. It has often been cultivated with players spending multiple years in the program.
In the transfer portal era though, that’s led to great roster turnover across the sport. Even at Utah, where the turnover hasn’t been as great as other programs, nearly half of the this year’s roster is new to the program. That puts a premium on leadership, which starts at the top of the roster with a handful of guys who have been around a while and accomplished a great deal together.
Cam Rising: The Leader Of The Leaders
Quarterback Cameron Rising has been dubbed as “the leader of the leaders” by coach Whittingham. He sees an ideal situation with all the new faces combined with what is returning from recent iterations of the roster.
“I think it’s a match made in heaven right now, in that sense,” Rising said. “When you integrate new pieces like that and you have experienced guys like us coming back, that’s really when those new guys are able to learn and see how it’s done.”
QB1 pic.twitter.com/U8Juo3WoCa
— Steve Bartle (@BartleKSLsports) July 29, 2024
Tight end Brant Kuithe is another key figure in the leadership of the team this season. There isn’t much that Kuithe hasn’t experienced in his collegiate career to this point. Despite all the preseason attention and respect the Utes have earned, the focus for Kuithe is all about what’s right in front of him.
“Our focus is the first game – obviously, being the Big 12 Champions is definitely on our minds, but we have to focus on what’s happening right now,” Kuithe said. “First practice is done and now we have to go in and review the plays, look at the film, and just get better from it and that’s the process.”
Great things are often accomplished by small, simple tasks done well over and over and that’s really what this season will boil down to. There is a good number of players that have played significant roles in winning at a high level, while there is also a portion that have yet to experience that. All of that makes this is year’s collection of players a group with tremendous potential.
For Utah, the player leadership is often a product of the overall culture that’s been established in the program. It’s clear that players truly take pride in it here. It genuinely means something to them, particularly the veterans that have reaped the rewards of buying into the culture. They also understand that they are primarily responsible for getting the new guys to buy into how the team operates.
“I won’t lie, it takes a little bit for the new guys to learn but once we come together as a team and they truly buy in, that’s where that culture shows,” Tafuna said of the process for players to learn the culture here. “That’s what fall camp is for –to learn that culture, to learn what it means to win as a team, to play for the team, because it’s a team-first mentality here.”
Tafuna also understands that it’s upon him and other veteran players to set the example, each and every day.
“It only works if we’re leading, that’s the main key,” he said. “A lot of us have to take on that role and that’s what we’re going to do this fall camp –to take the lead, show them the ropes, and know that that culture will come through.”
Coach Whittingham has done an outstanding job of leading his program up the ranks at the power conference level. The Utes are to the point now where expectations are going to be high seemingly every year. This season presents a special opportunity for Utah, one that would cement legacies and perhaps solidify Utah’s standing in the future of the sport. But just as he credits his career success to recruiting and the players that have come through the program, it’ll be on the shoulders of those players again this season to lead this team to achieving their goals. And as Whittingham stated, he feels good about the leadership in place on this team.
