Branden Carlson will attempt to give it a go tonight, but this pic looks like it’s a bad injury…

Focus for spring

•Creating depth. Some positions have great depth. At some positions, they’ve got new faces—safety, corner—really the secondary is the strong focus of finding guys.

•Good bodies and good athleticism. This is one of those springs, at least in the secondary, where it's more about teaching and finding the right guys to give the reps to. They can only get a certain amount of guys ready.

• Believes that's the early job as coaches, is to find those guys and make sure they're feeding them reps

•Kenan Johnson is a stand out so far, a guy that has experienced a lot of college football. He has a ton of reps under his belt, and some good college football at that.

• Main thing for Johnson is about learning their scheme and terminology. Communication is a big factor from corner to safety, having communication across the board. His experience and technique and having a ton of reps under his belt is the reason he's in that position — he's taking coaching well and they’re fired up about him.

•Tao Johnson at safety; he's got really good speed over the top. He's got great ball skills. They haven't necessarily had that over-the-top free safety since maybe Julian Blackmon.

•Tao, with his ability to cover ground, is really pleasant to see back there. Even on day one (of practice), he had a nice interception getting over the top. His ball skills, speed and athleticism will prove to be very beneficial for them

Interesting game tonight. BC is supposedly a game time decision. I have no inside information but will be surprised if he plays. ASU is without Jose Perez who ditched the team a week ago to play in the Dominican Republic. He led ASU in scoring in both games against us (26 and 21).

Bobby Squirrely continues to be the most annoying coach in the league. His seat is getting warmer. Would love to hand him an L.

ASU won both games in league play 82-70 in Tempe and 85-77 in SLC.

BC led us in scoring both games (19 and 25). In Tempe we shot 40/32/58 while they were 50/43/63. We also had 15 turnovers. Madsen scored 3 points and Lovering and Keita were both saddled with foul trouble.

In SLC we shot 46/30/46 and they shot 46/44/73. No Rollie in this game. Deivon put up a 0 and Gabe was 4-15.

We didn't play well in either game, particularly on defense. Hopefully, that will be different tonight.

Will this be the season the group takes the next step?

-They're working on the install as fast as they can early on. Then just repping it.

-Right now Rose, Wilson, and Bottari are all splitting the backup reps.

-It’s great to have Rising and Kuithe out there. They add so much to the team in so many ways. It was killing both of them to not be out there last year. They were two of the biggest standouts today.

-This team is definitely up to speed and prepared, which it should be with so many returnees.

-Micah Bernard and Mike Mitchell stood out today at the running back position. Mitchell has a bunch of upside. Glover looked good, as well. Dijon Stanley has some intrigue that will get them to use him more than just out of the backfield.

-Dorian Singer looked great today and there’s 3-4 young guys that just need to keep progressing.

-Spencer Fano moved to RT and Caleb Lomu is lining up at LT for now. Tania Togiai is lining up at LG, Michael Mokofisi RG, and Kili Faaui is back at center. They believe they have 10-11 guys ready for key reps.

-Newcomers who stood out: Mitchell, Singer. and Kenan Johnson. He also mentioned Tao Johnson because of his position switch. Tao looked like a natural at safety.

-Hiring former Northwestern OC Mike Bajakian is crucial and commonplace today. Several coaches and football programs take advantage of it when they’re in between jobs for one reason or another. He’ll help with scouting reports staying a week ahead of where Utah is at so they have a good jump going into each game. He’ll also help with breaking down potential recruit films.

Here’s Matt’s story for day one:

https://utah.rivals.com/news/utes-spring-ball-recap-utah-football-is-back

I’ll update more after I get him tonight, but media was able to see 20 minutes of practice.

-Rising threw a dime on the first play we saw for a 25-yard TD to Pittman. The pass was placed perfectly right over the CB.

Rising also ran the ball a few times and he looked smooth doing it. You could tell that he was relishing being able to run it like that again.

He had several nice passes including a TD to Kuithe. He did have one that Snowden had nice coverage on and probably could have picked it if he’d have gone up for it.

-Rose had some impressive throws on the run. He also had occasional bad ones. Rose was picked off by Johnathan Hall. He connected with Money Parks on that looked near identical to the 25-yard TD Rising had thrown the play before.

-Wilson is splitting reps with Rose and most of the plays from him today were handing off. He did have a few nice short passes, and he was also picked in the end zone by Jackson Bennee.

-Even though it wasn’t a day for tackling, Mike Mitchell stood out, but Ganther was quick to give him constructive criticism on one of his nice runs, saying, “You should have hit that hole two steps before.” I saw that because, it’s a minor detail, but Ganther knows what he’s capable of and lets him know it.

More to come, as I go through the audio.

It’s that time again! We’ll be rolling our spring position outlooks out over the next few days.

https://utah.rivals.com/news/utes-spring-outlook-running-backs

A Pac-12 Tournament championship run in is probably the only path to the Big Dance:

The latest on some big names:

Moss gets his opportunity to start on a team that should have a bounce back year on 2024:

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Last game of the regular season is about to start.

Usually a game against the worst team in the conference wouldn't be very interesting, but if the Utes want to keep any chance of making it to the Big Dance this game is a must win.

Here’s Matt’s article on the bad loss to Oregon State. This pretty much should eliminate them from an at-large bid unless the make the Pac-12 championship game.

https://utah.rivals.com/news/takeaways-utah-loses-to-osu-hurting-at-large-ncaa-bid-hopes

Well deserved

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This is a big deal. Utah refused to sign the 99 year blood oath, foreshadowing that the Big 12 is a temporary solution for them.

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I just read the article that ESPN put out about the behind the scenes look into the retirement of Saban and the hiring of Deboer. I found this part of the article super interesting. Saban more or less is already exhausted with how NIL is going and projects and wanted out it seemed. Wasn't the whole reason but seemed like a big part.

"I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I'm going to play because they're thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me?" Saban recounted. "Our program here was always built on how much value can we create for your future and your personal development, academic success in graduating and developing an NFL career on the field.

"So I'm saying to myself, 'Maybe this doesn't work anymore, that the goals and aspirations are just different and that it's all about how much money can I make as a college player?' I'm not saying that's bad. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that's never been what we were all about, and it's not why we had success through the years."

Utah has added a new analyst from the Big Ten. Thoughts?

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I’m going to be dropping the combine updates and links in here. If anybody comes across stuff that I don’t, feel free to add it, and let’s start the conversation with all of it.

Jaylon Johnson Franchise Tag

Not sure how he'll like it. I don't know the details but seems many players don't want the franchise tag. I'm glad he has good stock though.

The Runnin' Utes are still right on the bubble as we head into the final week of the regular season:

Here’s the starting lineup for senior night.

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I’ve said before that I’m in the camp for giving Craig Smith at least one more year. I still feel that’s deserved… I heard last night though—and checked with three other sources today—that the seat is scorching hot and there will be a strong push from influencers for a coaching change to be made if they don’t make the NCAA tournament. Smith still does have people in his corner that want to give him one more year. It’ll be interesting to watch over the next month.