PROVO — More than half the Pac-12 shook up their coaching offices, but Utah stood pat. What does that mean?
The league has some work to do to make an assault in the College Football Playoff.
At first glance, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham only solidified his position as the longest-tenured Pac-12 coach. And by keeping his workers intact, he keeps consistency, continuity and chemistry as the Utes shift from a very experienced football team to one that will need to address growing pains with new faces. These include replacements for Bradlee Anae, Jaylon Johnson, Francis Bernard, a career rusher (Zack Moss) and a productive, athletic QB (Tyler Huntley), who combined for 5,000 yards in 2019.
If you are a Ute fan, you hope this is just reloading and not rebuilding. Having all staff members returning from an 11-win team for spring and fall is a huge benefit. In this Pac-12 climate, it’s a big deal.
Utah’s two chief Pac-12 challengers are Oregon and Washington. USC, which defeated the Utes in 2019, is a distant third because the Trojans have talent, but are a mess.
Oregon just hired Joe Moorhead, the former head coach at Mississippi State, as offensive coordinator. The Ducks whipped Utah 37-15 in the league title game. Moorhead, rumored to be paid $1.9 million for two years, was the highest in-demand assistant for hire the past month and will be the highest paid offensive coordinator in the league. What else would you expect from Nike U?
Whittingham outlasted Chris Petersen’s short reign at Washington, and the newly elevated defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake should keep the Huskies defensively solid. What Lake did as the Huskies new head coach was hire NFL experience at offensive coordinator in Jaguars offensive assistant John Donovan. This could be a push. Petersen was a tremendous leader and organizer.
This brings us to Utah’s primary threat in the South Division, the Trojans.
USC just added former Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando to its staff. While the Longhorns “worked” Utah in the Alamo Bowl, Orlando had been relieved of his duties before that bowl game, but his concepts and schemes were in place against the Utes.
The Trojans’ challenge is more one of culture, according to Pac-12 watcher Jon Wilner of The (San Jose) Mercury News. He sees Orlando as a change of hats, not necessarily brains.
“USC’s primary issue defensively isn’t tactics or talent,” writes Wilner. “It’s lack of mental and physical toughness, lack of discipline and lack of accountability — and that all starts with the head coach.”
With UCLA trying to figure out how to make up a $19 million shortfall in its athletic budget, perhaps Arizona State is Utah’s biggest challenge in the South if USC doesn’t get its act together.
ASU just hired former Boise State offensive coordinator Zak Hill, who will operate under an NFL leader in Herm Edwards, former Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets head coach. Hill’s best pupil at QB was Broncos star Brett Rypien. The Sun Devils also elevated Tony White to defensive coordinator, searching for answers.
What all this means is change versus consistency.
Andy Ludwig — whose return to the Utes’ staff last season helped make a senior-laden offense more consistent — may prove to be the right fit at the ever-changing OC position at Utah.
Utah will face the brunt of new coaching hires in 2020, including a new staff at Washington State (Mike Leach left to take the head job at Mississippi State and was replaced by former Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich), the post-Petersen regime at UW, Cal (Bill Musgrave) and Oregon’s new offensive coordinators and ASU’s Hill. On the defensive side, Utah opponents Arizona (Paul Rhoads), ASU (White), USC (Orlando), Washington (Pete Kwiatkowski) and Washington State (Jake Dickert) have new coordinators.
This brings up another debate about making coaching changes, be it head coaches or coordinators.
At San Diego State, head coach Rocky Long, a month from turning 70, stepped down as a successful head coach and took a defensive coordinator job back at New Mexico where he’d been a head coach.
Why?
He said he needed a change.
And having golfed with Long at the beautiful Paako Ridge Golf Club outside of Albuquerque back during the old Mountain West media days, I could see him wanting to get back to a place where he’d amassed a lot of friends and connections for his final seasons with a whistle around his neck.
Besides, traffic around I-5 and Montezuma Mesa in San Diego can be a headache. But, while there he received multiple bumps in his salary, enjoyed seeing the value of his house go up and walked away with a trophy from the New Mexico Bowl.
To all the new faces, good luck.
You will need it.
.
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January 30, 2020 at 02:43AM
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