Good luck, Mike Bajakian.
Hello, fear and loathing.
So it is that Utah football is back in the business of switching up and switching out offensive coordinators, a trend that plagued Kyle Whittingham and the entire Ute program over a 10-year span, when they changed coordinators in the same manner, at the same rate as a boat owner scrapes barnacles off the bottom of his hull, until Ludwig’s return to the Utes ended that annual scrape and spin in 2019.
The decade from 2009 to 2019 featured some decent Utah teams, almost always led by the defense. The offense had its ups and downs — to the point where speculation erupted over Whittingham’s role as a kind of dark overlord over the offense. He wasn’t an offensive expert, focusing instead on his defense, but it seemed the head coach’s shadow hung over the other side of the ball. He did not want some newfangled coordinator coming in to display his genius, flinging the ball all over the yard, turning the ball over and putting his defense in disadvantageous situations. Taking care of the ball — being safe with it — led a string of quarterbacks to err, if they were going to err, on the side of chucking the ball 5 yards out of bounds rather than spinning it into tight windows, risking an interception. At Utah, through that span, turnovers were death. Maybe even death was favored over a pick or a fumble in the red zone.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mike Bajakian, Utah Utes quarterback Luke Bottari (15), Utah Utes quarterback Isaac Wilson (11) as the Utah Utes host the Baylor Bears, NCAA football in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024.
It was sort of a yearly joke that Whittingham would say in fall camp that he wanted improvement in the “throw game,” and at the same time, everyone knew that the quarterback and the coordinator would put the ball in the air at their own risk.
When Ludwig returned, after having helped the Utes in seasons that ascended up to their undefeated Sugar Bowl season, when QB Brian Johnson led the Utes to perfection that included the famous Utah win over Alabama and seeing Ludwig thereafter shove off on a vagabond run through other coordinator jobs at other schools, he calmed the situation down. He found the right mix of the run and the pass, aided by developing quarterbacks Tyler Huntley and Cam Rising en route.
As everybody around here knows, when Rising suffered injuries that stopped him from playing last season and most of this season, Utah’s offense ruptured. Evidence of that was never greater, never worse, than what was put on the field on Saturday night at Rice-Eccles against TCU.
Starting with the letter A, we could go with abysmal and atrocious and move on from there. Those are just two words to describe it, with Ludwig at the controls. Even with a more enlightened — and by more enlightened, we mean more tolerant — Whittingham prowling the sideline, 68 rushing yards is going to prompt a nasty conversation from the boss to his assistants, including his highly-paid top offensive assistant.
That’s why anyone paying attention who heard Whittingham in Saturday night’s postgame talk about considering “tough decisions” over the next 24 to 48 hours, saying “everything will be evaluated,” could guess that even a respected, longstanding coordinator like Ludwig was in deep doo-doo. A head coach might think about making a change at starting quarterback, especially when the starter is an 18-year-old freshman, but, at this juncture, he’s pretty much stuck with the players he has. And Isaac Wilson wasn’t the one making the decision to give the ball to Micah Bernard just 13 times in a tight defensive battle against the Horned Frogs.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez | AP) Utah offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig answers questions during a press conference ahead of the Rose Bowl NCAA college football game against Penn State Friday, Dec. 30, 2022, in Los Angeles.
At halftime, Ludwig should have been calling his real estate agent.
Who knows exactly what was said between Whittingham and Ludwig between game’s end the head coach’s announcement via a statement on Sunday night that Ludwig “has made the decision to step down from his position with Utah football.”
What followed in the statement was a bunch of “Andy is a consummate professional,” and “thanks for his complete dedication to our program,” and “I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Andy as both a coach and a person,” and “blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.”
Something tells me the aforementioned conversation between Whittingham and Ludwig — even if there is respect and admiration between them — had little of those two characteristics mixed into it.
It’s more likely that the dialogue began and continued on with:
“What the hell is going on, Andy? That was a piece of [expletive] exhibition of offensive football. We couldn’t pick up first downs, couldn’t convert on third down, couldn’t get across midfield, and, if we had gotten into the red zone, we still wouldn’t have gotten touchdowns, because we’ve been doing that at less than a 50-percent clip. That’s pathetic. If we can’t pass the ball and can’t run the ball, how else, Andy, are we gonna advance it? Are we gonna stand on our heads and do the hokey-pokey? Or just keep on punting 11 times a game? And it hasn’t gotten any better, it’s gotten worse. That can’t be tolerated, and it won’t be. I don’t care who’s under center, that was a [expletive-expletive] showing. And the performances against Arizona and Arizona State stunk, too. [Offensive analyst] Mike Bajakian could have called a better game than you did.”
On Monday morning, Whittingham said that Ludwig had left of his “own volition” — that he was “at a loss” and felt it was time for the Utes to “hear a new voice.”
Now the new OC will get a chance.
Goodbye, Andy Ludwig.
The dark overlord is back.
Hello, fear and loathing.
Good luck, Mike Bajakian.
Lord knows, you’ll need it.
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