Rose Bowl analysis: Cam Rising’s injury, defensive miscues doomed Utes

Pasadena, Calif. • There are tea leaves scattered across the University of Utah football ecosystem that lead you to believe that Cam Rising is coming back for a sixth year in 2023.

However, until Rising, or at least someone in his inner circle, says he is actually returning for one more run, there remains a chance that the Rose Bowl was his final college game. If that turns out to be the case, Monday night would certainly not define his career, but it would be a shame because he would have deserved better in the end.

A second straight Rose Bowl appearance, but a second straight Rose Bowl in which he left early due to injury, and in the end, a second straight Rose Bowl loss. After last year’s loss to Ohio State, Rising left concussed, but there was no doubt he was coming back in 2022. This time, he exited with a left knee injury, and the future, both long and short, is in question, both for Rising and for Utah.

Forty minutes after Penn State overwhelmed Utah for a 35-21 win, Rising emerged from the locker room, his left knee in a brace, a police officer by his side. He hopped on the back of a cart bound for the team bus up a back alley. The officer said something to Rising out of earshot, which drew a laugh. The cart sped off into the darkness as Rising kept smiling.

A decision on what’s next is imminent, certainly within the next two weeks. Whether or not Utah fans are going to be smiling when that decision comes down is a different matter entirely.

Rising’s injury

The fifth-year junior went just 8-for-21 for 95 yards with a touchdown and an interception, but those numbers, while poor, belie the fact that Rising made some timely plays in a game that was evenly matched for a long time.

In hindsight, he kept Utah afloat longer than it probably should have been given how uncharacteristically bad the defense was. The play he got hurt on was an example.

On third-and-7 from the Utah 28-yard line, Rising was flushed out of the pocket, then scrambled for nine yards and the first down, but went down hard after getting hit by multiple defenders. Should Rising have slid? Yeah, probably, but that’s not really the norm when he takes off running. Rising got hit, got up, but went right back down. He stayed down for a couple of minutes, then needed help to the injury tent. His time in the tent was short, but he then went to the locker room and his night was over. Rising reemerged late in the second half in street clothes.

So, now what?

Kyle Whittingham said postgame that Rising has a leg injury and that it didn’t look good, but did not elaborate further, but the ‘it didn’t look good’ part is ominous. Without speculating what the injury is, if we’re talking about months, one has to wonder how or if it alters the decision-making process with the NFL draft declaration deadline coming on Jan. 16.

If we’re talking about months and Rising opts to return in 2023, spring practice might get interesting from a QB2 perspective. If we’re talking about months and Rising opts to leave, it’s pretty late in the game to hit the NCAA Transfer Portal to find a veteran quarterback to at least push the incumbents in the room, Bryson Barnes, Nate Johnson and Brandon Rose.

For what it’s worth, before Monday, I believe Rising had his mind made up, and I believe Whittingham knows exactly what that decision is. Rising has had a good poker face for the last month, but Whittingham has given enough under-the-radar indicators that he knows what’s coming.

Again, all of that was before Monday. Injuries, though. Injuries sometimes change your thinking and change those decisions, and if Rising changes his mind, that’s going to have wide-ranging ramifications on what others decide to do.

If nothing changes, and Rising and at least most of the crew return, Utah should be the consensus pick to win the Pac-12 come July.

Utah had no answer with Bryson Barnes

Between the Rose Bowl last season vs. Ohio State and the must-win game at Washington State this season, Bryson Barnes is part of Utah football lore, but objectively a significant dropoff between the Milford native and Rising was evident on Monday.

On his third pass attempt after relieving Rising, Barnes threw a ball deep down the sideline into double coverage intended for Devaughn Vele. It was easily intercepted by Ji’Ayir Brown at a point where Utah was still in this game.

• Barnes’ first full drive: Five plays, 45 yards, 30 of which came on a Ja’Quinden Jackson run, punt

• Barnes’ second drive: Three plays, minus-6 yards, punt

• Barnes’ third drive: Three plays, minus-20 yards, including a 10-yard holding penalty on Logan Kendall and Barnes taking an 11-yard sack.

We’re not trying to put everything on Barnes, but after Rising went out, there was no gusto at all in the middle of the game that was still winnable.

“We lost a little bit of our mojo when that happened,” Whittingham said. “That’s not the right way to respond. We needed to respond better than we did.”

As with any offseason, there are a lot of questions with this Utah team. One of them is at quarterback, regardless of whether or not Rising returns. If he does return, what Whittingham opts to do at QB2 gets magnified, because if you believe Nate Johnson has the stuff to be your starter at some point, how much more are you going to put into Barnes, who will be a fourth-year sophomore in 2023.

Barnes has given a ton to this program, certainly more than any reasonable observer expected, or even thought possible, but the future right now should look a little cloudy as the offseason begins.

The two big defensive miscues

There are times when Utah’s run defense gets beat up a bit, but they are few and far between, certainly not the norm. Utah’s run defense giving up an 87-yard touchdown run is almost unheard of.

On third-and-2 from the Penn State 13-yard line, Sean Clifford handed off to Big Ten Freshman of the Year Nick Singleton. He found a hole and once he got to the second level, he put it in gear and was gone, untouched 87 yards to the house for a 21-14 Nittany Lions lead.

Utah was in a zero blitz call, which means any defender that is not matched up with an offensive player is blitzing. We’ll leave the full explanation to Whittingham.

“We got cut out of a gap on the big run. It was a defense where we committed essentially everybody but the corners who were in coverage to the box, and one of our up-front guys got cut out by their tight end. Tight end did a great job. If you watch the replay, our defensive guy is looking over to the sideline to see if we’re going to be changing the call. They snapped the ball when his head was to the sideline, which didn’t allow him to get a very good opportunity to play the block scheme, so that was the issue there.”

On the next Penn State drive, facing third-and-4 at his own 12, Clifford hit KeAndre Lambert-Smith at the Utah 46, and he did the rest by sprinting in for an 88-yard touchdown pass and a 28-14 lead. Lambert-Smith gave Utah safety R.J. Hubert a double move and wound up going up the seam. Hubert said postgame he thought Lambert-Smith was going to the corner, so he bit too hard on the first move.

Hubert’s struggles were amplified because he was also lost on the Singleton touchdown run. Hubert played at an All-Pac-12 level for most of 2022, which was a feel-good story given his injury history, but Monday was bad, and he was willing to admit it postgame.

Hubert has one of the more intriguing NFL decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. He reiterated after the game that he has not made up his mind yet. At the age of 25, he has one season of eligibility remaining. Utah’s safeties room projects as loaded in 2023, with or without Hubert.

A bunch of questions

Here is an incomplete list of storylines facing Utah, as I see it, as the offseason begins:

• Can Ja’Quinden Jackson become a true RB1 with an offseason of work?

• Making up for the production you lose from Dalton Kincaid. I currently have Brant Kuithe penciled in to return.

• More production at WR, which it feels like we’re talking about in perpetuity.

• Hubert, Cole Bishop, Sione Vaki, Nate Ritchie vying for two safety spots. If Ritchie gets back into football shape, that’s probably four All-Pac-12 level guys. Good problem to have.

• If Utah goes with two linebackers, it’s Lander Barton and Karene Reid, right? Can Stanford transfer Levani Dumani make a play there in a 4-2-5 alignment? What about Justin Medlock?

• Further down the list, figure out the kicking situation, which has been a mess for most of the last two seasons.

Other things on my mind

• Utah got to the Penn State 35-yard line on its first drive of the second half, then got cute with Philly Special, resulting in Vele taking a 9-yard sack. The drive ended in a punt from inside plus territory. Woof.

• We’re not going to argue over whether or not Nate Johnson should have gotten extended reps, but this game, with the offense stuck in mud for most of it, felt like the appropriate time to at least trot him out there to make Penn State think about it.

• You start looking at 2023, and it is the most ambitious schedule in the history of the program. Florida comes to Salt Lake, Utah then goes to Baylor, and the Pac-12 schedule includes trips to three projected conference title contenders in USC, Washington and Oregon State, plus a trip to an improved Arizona team that is no longer a doormat. Yeah, who the QB ends up being will dictate how we think all that goes.

• The Rose Bowl was 70-30 in favor of Utah fans, maybe a touch more. This fanbase has been nothing short of rabid over the last two years.

• Utah has lost at the Rose Bowl three times in the last 366 days. Once to Ohio State, once to UCLA, and once to Penn State. By comparison, the Bruins, the primary tenant of the stadium, have lost there twice in the same span.

• I have no reason to believe at the moment that Whittingham won’t be back in 2023. That said, at this point in Whittingham’s career, that scenario has to at least be considered.

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