by Every year the Utah Utes are written off as a “good not great” Pac 12 team and every year they overperform and are always in the conference title hunt at the finish line.
A pivotal road win over USC this past Saturday further exemplified Utah’s consistent conference success and reminded us that Kyle Whittingham is an elite college coach.
He also had this all-time football guy quote:
It was the program’s fourth straight victory over the Trojans, and third against Caleb Williams and this “unstoppable” Lincoln Riley offense. They’re also 3-0 ATS in those past three games vs Williams.
While it would be a huge stretch to say that Utah will three-peat as Pac 12 champs this season with games against Oregon and Washington remaining on its schedule, the Utes are off to a 6-1 start and have done so without its star quarterback and leader Cam Rising. That isn’t easy, especially when considering how difficult their schedule is for competing the most stacked conference in the nation in terms of overall depth.
No one thrives more in the underdog role and does more with less in college football than Whittingham.
If there’s one word to describe him it’s ‘overachiever.’ While he never reels in a boatload of flashy five-star talent, Whittingham has always produced some of the most disciplined and mentally tough teams in the country on an annual basis.
Utah is also recognized as one of the best programs in terms of player development. Whittingham turns three-star recruits, like Dalton Kincaid and Tyler Huntley, into NFL Draft picks. So if it’s not his ability to develop them, he must really have an eye for hidden talent.
His recruiting has never been top notch because it’s extremely hard to get an elite 18-year-old athlete to come play ball in the state of Utah, being that it’s not a talent-rich state, it’s predominantly Mormon (only 22% of the student population comes from out of state), and it’s not the sexiest program when compared to a USC or Oregon.
Again, doing more with less.
There are only three coaches I put above him right now: Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, and Jim Harbaugh. You can argue Ryan Day, even though the “born on third base” argument is valid, plus the way Clemson has regressed under Dabo Swinney this season and Whittingham owning Riley in the USC rivalry, you can’t put them above him in my opinion. Not right now at least.
Now, I realize that Utah has yet to make a playoff appearance. That would be the one argument that stunts my take here. But people need to realize that, opposed to coaches like Day who inherited championship-caliber rosters and elite recruiting pipelines, Whittingham has bolstered great success at a non-blue blood program.
Utah may very well finish the regular season 9-3, but if you asked a Utes fan how they’d feel about that two months ago knowing they’d be without Rising and Brant Kuithe (a top 10 TE in college football) all season in this loaded of a conference, they’d say “hell yeah.”
If Kyle Whittingham was fired tomorrow, at least 98% of schools across the country would hire him literally within 30 seconds.
