Feel free to post your favorite TL;DR meme instead of reading this.
Now that we have another season of data to draw upon, people are sharing their opinions of Whitt and his time at Utah. Some people love Whitt unconditionally, are blind to his shortcomings, and wish he could coach at Utah forever, no matter how many times they watch Utah get completely ran out of the stadium. Other people think it wouldn't be all that hard to replace Whitt with someone that wins just as many games and replacing him would come with a chance of finding a coach that has bigger peaks that include conference championships.
When you are 5-6 and your most recent loss involved a really bad coaching decision (make no mistake: the timeout was a huge risk for a tiny chance at an extreme longshot), people are going to get restless. At every major program, without fail, in such situations some people are going to call for a coach to be fired. Everybody else knows that the fans calling for people's jobs are emotionally overreacting and misguided. That is, of course, until the day comes that they aren't and it's time to actually fire someone.
That time has not come for Utah, but I understand why people are frustrated with quite a few things under Whitt. The multiple losses - often blowouts - to bad teams. Coaching overly conservative and getting beat by aggressive coaches, then suddenly coaching so aggressively that it prevents not one, but two critical overtime opportunities in the same season. Never winning the division. Going through OC's faster than Floyd Mayweather replaces cars. I could go on.
The truth is, Whitt does a lot more right than he does wrong. Recently, it has felt like he was about to take the next step. Utah won 9, then 10, then 9 games playing in a damn tough conference. Recruiting has been improving significantly the last couple of classes. It's like Kyle figured out a new/better way to sell the U, because recruiting is as good as it's ever been. I felt like something important finally clicked for him this off-season. Perhaps most important of all, he finally stopped being stubborn and figured out what every other coach and fan already figured out many years ago - offense matters. He hired a real OC instead of a program destroyer like Christensen or promoting under-qualified loyal guys that are expected to focus on developing an ultra-conservative, run the ball and don't turn it over scheme.
Speaking of Utah's OC, Taylor is the real deal. I've said this many times before, but I watch a truly embarrassing amount of football. I have spent thousands of hours watching every offense, every OC, every scheme you could imagine. When I replay games and look at the defensive scheme, consider the personel, and compare it to the playcall, I find it undeniable that Taylor really knows what he is doing. IMO, his play calling has generally been excellent with very few exceptions. When the play doesn't work, it's almost always a good call that fell apart because of somebody not doing their job. It's usually someone (or multiple someones) on the O-line, but not always. Carrington's strip-6 against Oregon was a good play call against the Duck's formation, but Simpkins decided he didn't feel like blocking on that play, so he made a half-assed attempt at a cut block and missed. Simpkins turned what would have been a 10+ yard gain into a TD for Oregon.
The things holding Utah's offense back right now are bad O-line play, drive-killing penalties, occassional WR screw ups, and it bears repeating - the worst O-line we've seen in many years. Utah is a quality O-line away from having one of the most productive offenses in the conference. For once, the OC isn't holding Utah's offense back. More importantly, for once the QB isn't holding Utah's offense back. It can't be said enough how special of a talent Tyler Huntley is. In fact, I would argue that he is the single most important player to wear the drum and feather in more than a decade. Why is Huntley so singularly important? That brings me to the entire point of this novel.
No more excuses. That's the most valuable commodity that Huntley and Taylor bring to Utah. Going forward, there are no more excuses for Kyle. He has always been a defensive guru and a good all-around coach, but there has always been the built-in excuse of not being able to attract a quality OC; not being able to recruit a top notch QB. When you have mediocre OCs calling plays for mediocre QBs, people see it as a miracle that Kyle has won so many games and sing his praises instead of pointing the finger. What should have people pissed off at him ends up more like "9 wins with that offense? WOW! What a coach!"
It has been a vicious cycle of Utah not being able to fix the offense without a quality QB/OC combo, but no quality QB or OC wanting to come to Utah and run a broken offense. Classic chicken or the egg. That excuse is officially dead. Over the next two seasons, we finally get to see the answer to the riddle of Kyle Whittingham that has spawned a million arguments in the tailgating lots and online. Were mediocre QBs and OCs to blame for holding Kyle back from being a championship level coach, or has Kyle been the source of the QB and OC issues all along? We finally get to see the answer over the next one to two years.
As far as I'm concerned, Whitt's legacy is about to be cemented one way or another. If Utah continues to struggle, continues to randomly shit the bed against bad teams, continues to come up short in all of the biggest games, continues to have games where they seem unmotivated and poorly coached, I will be 110% on board with rolling the dice and replacing Whitt, come what may from that decision. If it results in a string of 3 to 4 win seasons, so be it. I will still show up to every game anyway, happy to know that at least we tried to win a championship instead of accepting a coach too flawed to ever win a 6 team division that literally every other program has taken turns winning.
Just like I posted on here in early 2014, when Whitt's seat was warming up after back to back losing seasons, I don't expect any of that to happen. I think Whitt really is an excellent coach that has been held back by the paradox of having mediocre QBs and OCs, but not being able to attract good QBs and OCs to fix it because the stench of previous failures kept quality replacements from coming. I don't know how he pulled it off or why it took so many years, but I know that he finally found a way to overcome that cycle in Huntley and Taylor. We are finally going to see what Whitt is truly made of before Huntley leaves.
I believe we are in for something special and I am as excited for next season as I've ever been. If we get more 2016 style Cal/Oregon debacles that cost Utah the division; more blowouts to mid-tier teams like 2017 ASU and Oregon that derail the season; if the defense takes another step back instead of fixing the uncharacteristic line issues; if we get more excuses for why the offense can't seem to get the job done in spite of finally having a quality QB/OC, I will be at peace with playing the coaching carousel lotto.
All I ask for is a chance, however small, of Utah winning a PAC-12 championship. I'm not saying that Whitt absolutely must win the conference or even the division before Huntley leaves, because you never know when another team is going to have an incredible, transcendent season that eclipses your own glory, but Utah must take a big and obvious step in that direction. The excuses have finally ran out and the time for judgement is looming.
Now that we have another season of data to draw upon, people are sharing their opinions of Whitt and his time at Utah. Some people love Whitt unconditionally, are blind to his shortcomings, and wish he could coach at Utah forever, no matter how many times they watch Utah get completely ran out of the stadium. Other people think it wouldn't be all that hard to replace Whitt with someone that wins just as many games and replacing him would come with a chance of finding a coach that has bigger peaks that include conference championships.
When you are 5-6 and your most recent loss involved a really bad coaching decision (make no mistake: the timeout was a huge risk for a tiny chance at an extreme longshot), people are going to get restless. At every major program, without fail, in such situations some people are going to call for a coach to be fired. Everybody else knows that the fans calling for people's jobs are emotionally overreacting and misguided. That is, of course, until the day comes that they aren't and it's time to actually fire someone.
That time has not come for Utah, but I understand why people are frustrated with quite a few things under Whitt. The multiple losses - often blowouts - to bad teams. Coaching overly conservative and getting beat by aggressive coaches, then suddenly coaching so aggressively that it prevents not one, but two critical overtime opportunities in the same season. Never winning the division. Going through OC's faster than Floyd Mayweather replaces cars. I could go on.
The truth is, Whitt does a lot more right than he does wrong. Recently, it has felt like he was about to take the next step. Utah won 9, then 10, then 9 games playing in a damn tough conference. Recruiting has been improving significantly the last couple of classes. It's like Kyle figured out a new/better way to sell the U, because recruiting is as good as it's ever been. I felt like something important finally clicked for him this off-season. Perhaps most important of all, he finally stopped being stubborn and figured out what every other coach and fan already figured out many years ago - offense matters. He hired a real OC instead of a program destroyer like Christensen or promoting under-qualified loyal guys that are expected to focus on developing an ultra-conservative, run the ball and don't turn it over scheme.
Speaking of Utah's OC, Taylor is the real deal. I've said this many times before, but I watch a truly embarrassing amount of football. I have spent thousands of hours watching every offense, every OC, every scheme you could imagine. When I replay games and look at the defensive scheme, consider the personel, and compare it to the playcall, I find it undeniable that Taylor really knows what he is doing. IMO, his play calling has generally been excellent with very few exceptions. When the play doesn't work, it's almost always a good call that fell apart because of somebody not doing their job. It's usually someone (or multiple someones) on the O-line, but not always. Carrington's strip-6 against Oregon was a good play call against the Duck's formation, but Simpkins decided he didn't feel like blocking on that play, so he made a half-assed attempt at a cut block and missed. Simpkins turned what would have been a 10+ yard gain into a TD for Oregon.
The things holding Utah's offense back right now are bad O-line play, drive-killing penalties, occassional WR screw ups, and it bears repeating - the worst O-line we've seen in many years. Utah is a quality O-line away from having one of the most productive offenses in the conference. For once, the OC isn't holding Utah's offense back. More importantly, for once the QB isn't holding Utah's offense back. It can't be said enough how special of a talent Tyler Huntley is. In fact, I would argue that he is the single most important player to wear the drum and feather in more than a decade. Why is Huntley so singularly important? That brings me to the entire point of this novel.
No more excuses. That's the most valuable commodity that Huntley and Taylor bring to Utah. Going forward, there are no more excuses for Kyle. He has always been a defensive guru and a good all-around coach, but there has always been the built-in excuse of not being able to attract a quality OC; not being able to recruit a top notch QB. When you have mediocre OCs calling plays for mediocre QBs, people see it as a miracle that Kyle has won so many games and sing his praises instead of pointing the finger. What should have people pissed off at him ends up more like "9 wins with that offense? WOW! What a coach!"
It has been a vicious cycle of Utah not being able to fix the offense without a quality QB/OC combo, but no quality QB or OC wanting to come to Utah and run a broken offense. Classic chicken or the egg. That excuse is officially dead. Over the next two seasons, we finally get to see the answer to the riddle of Kyle Whittingham that has spawned a million arguments in the tailgating lots and online. Were mediocre QBs and OCs to blame for holding Kyle back from being a championship level coach, or has Kyle been the source of the QB and OC issues all along? We finally get to see the answer over the next one to two years.
As far as I'm concerned, Whitt's legacy is about to be cemented one way or another. If Utah continues to struggle, continues to randomly shit the bed against bad teams, continues to come up short in all of the biggest games, continues to have games where they seem unmotivated and poorly coached, I will be 110% on board with rolling the dice and replacing Whitt, come what may from that decision. If it results in a string of 3 to 4 win seasons, so be it. I will still show up to every game anyway, happy to know that at least we tried to win a championship instead of accepting a coach too flawed to ever win a 6 team division that literally every other program has taken turns winning.
Just like I posted on here in early 2014, when Whitt's seat was warming up after back to back losing seasons, I don't expect any of that to happen. I think Whitt really is an excellent coach that has been held back by the paradox of having mediocre QBs and OCs, but not being able to attract good QBs and OCs to fix it because the stench of previous failures kept quality replacements from coming. I don't know how he pulled it off or why it took so many years, but I know that he finally found a way to overcome that cycle in Huntley and Taylor. We are finally going to see what Whitt is truly made of before Huntley leaves.
I believe we are in for something special and I am as excited for next season as I've ever been. If we get more 2016 style Cal/Oregon debacles that cost Utah the division; more blowouts to mid-tier teams like 2017 ASU and Oregon that derail the season; if the defense takes another step back instead of fixing the uncharacteristic line issues; if we get more excuses for why the offense can't seem to get the job done in spite of finally having a quality QB/OC, I will be at peace with playing the coaching carousel lotto.
All I ask for is a chance, however small, of Utah winning a PAC-12 championship. I'm not saying that Whitt absolutely must win the conference or even the division before Huntley leaves, because you never know when another team is going to have an incredible, transcendent season that eclipses your own glory, but Utah must take a big and obvious step in that direction. The excuses have finally ran out and the time for judgement is looming.
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