Anaheim, Calif. • The pomp and circumstance surrounding the Rose Bowl began on Wednesday afternoon.
Just like last year, the University of Utah took part in a cavalcade through Disneyland, with Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham taking a horse-and-buggy ride followed by Cam Rising, R.J. Hubert, Devin Kaufusi, and Devaughn Vele in a carriage of their own.
But as the Utes trekked down Main Street, U.S.A., you could be forgiven for taking a trip over to Fantasyland.
As the days of activity ahead of Monday’s matchup with Penn State (3 p.m., ESPN) unfold, there is an emerging storyline to go along with this latest Rose Bowl run: If certain NFL draft decisions end positively for Whittingham and the Utes, especially those of Rising and Vele, maybe everyone will be back at Disneyland again in a year to kick off the Rose Bowl for the third straight year.
“For the most part, we’ve got a good idea of who’s going to do what,” Whittingham said Wednesday afternoon. “I’m sure it won’t go completely as we think, but we’ve got a pretty good handle on it, and yes, we’ve been able to recruit towards that hand as far as who we’re going to lose and who we’re going to be able to retain. We won’t know for certain until the deadline, which isn’t for a couple of weeks, but right now, we feel like we have a really good idea of who’s coming and who’s leaving.”
College underclassmen have until Jan. 16 to file declaration papers with the NFL seeking special eligibility for the draft, which is scheduled for April 27-29.
The College Football Playoff was bandied about last summer as a realistic goal for these Utes, who opened the season ranked No. 7 in the AP Top 25. Utah could find itself in a similar spot next year, when the Rose Bowl will serve as a CFP semifinal, if enough players decide to return in 2023.
There is no bigger domino waiting to fall, one way or another, at Utah than Rising.
A fifth-year junior with one season of eligibility remaining, Rising said after a Senior Night win over Stanford that he believed he had played his last home game, indicating he planned to leave after the season. Whittingham echoed Rising’s sentiment — but in fairness, what Rising said was short of a proclamation, and there has been no concrete answer in the weeks leading up to the Rose Bowl.
Rising and several other Utes have the option for a sixth year after the NCAA made the COVID-impacted 2020 season a free year of eligibility across the sport.
Rising has been expectedly coy on the matter throughout December, but the widely held belief at this point is that he is at least giving real consideration to returning as a sixth-year senior.
“Starting to get closer to a decision, yeah,” Rising said Wednesday. “For the most part, they (the coaching staff) have kind’ve let me make my own decision and at the end of the day, it’s just what I want to do. They’ve been respectful, yes.”
What exactly is driving Rising’s decision, and that of others, has at least something to do with college athletics’ name, image and likeness rules — and how much money there is to be made from them. How much Rising has made through NIL is not publicly known, but using On3.com’s subjective valuation tool, his annual NIL value is pegged at better than $500,000, which is more than double what he stands to make if he were to get through an 18-week NFL season on a practice squad.
There is no known timetable for Rising’s decision and announcement, but it is not expected to come before the Rose Bowl. It stands to reason that if Rising comes back, others would follow suit.
“Obviously everything is personal to each individual person, so you don’t want to pry into their personal matters, but yeah, we’ll ask each other questions, what we’re thinking, what’s some of the reasoning, things like that,” Vele said. “Just trying to understand what they’re thinking and feeling, which may shed some new light on how other guys are going about it.”
Vele, a 24-year-old fourth-year sophomore wide receiver who served a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission out of high school, at one point said he was leaning toward leaving, but has since flipped that thinking to leaning toward staying for another year.
Vele’s hang-up has been his age, which he knows is against him if he wants a legitimate shot at the NFL. At the same time, this season has been his first extensive reps as a go-to wide receiver at the college level, so another season of film, potentially with a veteran quarterback in Rising making his job easier, could be to his benefit.
(Josh Newman | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah football head coach Kyle Whittingham travels in a horse-drawn carriage during a Rose Bowl cavalcade at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022.
With defections to the NCAA Transfer Portal still possible until the first portal window closes on Jan. 18, Utah’s defense is lining up as elite in 2023, even with Clark Phillips III leaving for the NFL draft.
If Rising decides to return, hypothetically, could Vele and All-Pac-12 tight end Brant Kuithe, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, but has another year of eligibility, also decide to come back? Another budding tight end, Thomas Yassmin, has another year to use, while Micah Bernard, Utah’s most versatile running back, has another two, but is in his fourth year of college and has already said he is undecided about returning.
If all, or even some of this happens, yes, maybe everyone is coming back to the Rose Bowl again, but this time with bigger stakes in play.
“We feel like we’re in a place with our program that we’ve recruited very well and we have a lot of talent on this roster,” Whittingham said. “If we continue to work and respect the process, we feel as if we can be in the conversation most every year.”
