All right, show rolling along.
It is not football season, but it's never a bad time to talk football because spring football for the utes right around the corner. The headball coach himself, Kyle Whittingham, on a Wednesday afternoon, Coach, Wait, how are you.
Sar doing well? Spencer? How are you doing?
I'm doing really well.
I always appreciate your time, So just kind of take us behind the scenes a little bit. What's this time of year? Like, what are the boxes you're trying to check prior to the beginning of spring ball here in just a couple of weeks.
Well, last couple of months, we've been in what we call winter player development. It's primarily in the weight room, you know, getting bigger, faster and stronger, and then on the field doing agility work and that type of thing and mixed in with some football walkthroughs at the NC two allows you to do. So that's that's been since they got back in early January for school up until next week when we go into spring break. That will
put an end to that. Then when we get back from spring break, we have a couple of days of review and then we start springballing the twentieth of March.
You know, it's no secret, Coach that you guys have a lot of roster change over, and even when you have good years, now you're gonna have a lot of roster change over because of the nature of the sport. How's the process been to get the new coaches up to speed with what you want them to do and get the new players to understand as you always say, mentally they need to understand what you're asking them to do, and physically they need to be capable of doing those things.
What's the process like integrating the new pieces.
I think, relatively speaking to where we are in relative to the time of year, I think we're right on track. We've got the offense essentially put in and now it's just reviewing it and making sure we get as much opportunity to expose them to it as possible. It's been a very good transition with the new coaches. We have three new coaches on the offensive side, and of course with coach Beck and his new scheme that he's brought in,
the players have really embraced that defensively. Pretty much business as usual, you know, no change over there. The scheme has remained the same for for years and years. And it's you know, in as far as the basics, we tweak a little bit here and there, but but I think based on you know, where we are early March as a team right now, we're in good shape.
So we had we had Jason Beck on the show. It was funny get to know him not too long ago, and I asked him the question, Kyle point blank, is Devin Dampierre your starting quarterback? And he said he is. So I will take the opportunity to ask you. For a fan base that's always wondering, he's gonna be starting to understand the plan moving forward.
Is Devin right, Devin damp Pier under center?
Well, if we played today, he would be the guy. So he's obviously got a great grasp of the offense having been in it in years past, and so it's it's nothing new to him. He's like having another coach on the field right now. He's he's just you know, completely versed in what we're doing. And and so you know, he's doing a great job. Isaac Wilson is really entrenched right now. Is number two. Now, that's not the same,
that can't change because everything's a competition. But Isaac has done a nice job assimilating the new offense as well.
You know, it's interesting, Kyle, I'm sure you know this. More than a dozen teams have straight up canceled their spring game. The latest to do it, Oklahoma is changing. They're just kind of there the way they go about it. But USC, Alabama, Ohio, State, Texas, Nebraska as well, they've just punted on spring games. Is that anything you guys have discussed up there as far as what to do with the spring game.
Absolutely, and that's still a discussion. And right now as we speak, a spring game in its format that our fans and players are used to through the years is still in place. That could be subject to change based on how things go through spring. You know, if we get thin at certain positions or you know, there's things that can change that. And so at the moment, spring game is a go. But I'm not going to rule it out just you know, circumstantially down the road, depending on what happens.
Well, And look, I wouldn't blame I don't want to see it go away because ultimately all of us just enjoy the spring celebration of your program and covering the game and just kind of being together and talking football is the fun thing we get to do as far as my little spot in this ecosystem. But I completely understand it, Kyle, because the roster limit changes things, right, I mean one oh five on game day and at last count you had one oh nine that might be up to as of now. So is the new roster
limit something that you have to keep in mind? I mean you always have to keep player safety in mind. In the past couple of years, you guys have just been riddled with bad luck and bad injuries. How does the new roster limit change? It feels like walk Ons are going away, right, You're going to get scholarships for all your players, But how does the new roster limit change the way you have to approach your job.
Well, it's a big impact in the roster limit. As of now, nothing is said completely in stone, but it's looking like the roster limit will need to be adhered to by your first content, which would be August thirtieth for US, the UCLA game, and so we would be able to train more than the one oh five during summer summer conditioning and then during fall camp. But then
you have to be at one oh five. So essentially you're going to have to make some cuts after fall camp to get to that one oh five number, because I don't know anyone that's going to go into fall camp with one oh five because if you get guys injured and you don't have guys in the bullpen, so to speak, you know you're not going to be able
to be at one oh five healthy bodies. And so most teams, I believe, will go into fall camp with one hundred and twenty one hundred and twenty five guys, and then when you get to that first game, there'll be you know, a certain amount that have weeded themselves out due to season ending injuries, and hopefully not not many, but it's it's it's you know, bound to happen to some teams, and then you just choose your your best one oh five at that point, and unfortunately, there's going
to be some guys that worked hard through camp that that just aren't going to have that opportunity. And that's how you have to do it, because, like I said, if you start at one oh five, I've you know, just through attrition, you're gonna you're gonna fall below that, and you know that's already a razor thin number to be able to operate. So so to me, that's how most teams are going to go.
About it well.
And you know, Kyle, if you're able to win the conference and make make it to the postseason and be a playoff team, you could play seventeen or eighteen games, and without the ability to add two during the season, that feels like a small group. I know listeners are probably think one hundred and five, that's plenty of players.
But this is not a contact sport, coach, as you know, this is a violent sport, and every week you're gonna lose guys, and so without the ability to add two during the season, does one o five feel a little bit low to you?
Very much so? And it was, you know, our understanding initially was that you had the one oh five, you know, the first game, and then if you had season ending injuries, you could replace those guys. Now they're saying, no, that's not going to be the case. And so that one oh five can get you know, into the high to mid nineties real quick. And you know, college football we have you know, pretty much everybody operates with the scout teams that you know give the look, you know, your
scout defense gives the offensive look and vice versa. And so as you start to creep those numbers down, you're gonna have to think about more of an NFL model where it's self serve, where the offense services of the defense and vice versa, rather than having the full on scout teams.
How has the new model changed your job day to day? Because I was thinking about this. You know, you obviously have Robert Bleckin as your general manager. Is there a portion of this coach that is taken a little bit off your plate because you have to have other people, you know, more of a pro model with some of the guys that are in charge of the finances, guys that are in charge of recruiting. You've always had recruiting coordinators.
But does hiring a guy like Robert as your GM and the infrastructure you have in place, does it actually allow you to maybe focus more on coaching than you know, having to be in charge of literally every piece of information and every piece of logistics when it comes to Utah.
Football, it's helped the assistant coaches stay out of it. They've stay out at the business end, and they've they just focus on making each guy in their room better. And in coaching them up and getting them ready for the season. I still have my hand in everything, and that's that's not going to change them. I don't know any head coach in the country that's at least right now going to completely turn over personnel to And this
again at the collegiate level. Pro level is a whole different deal, and you have those full blown personnel departments. We're still building that. You know, we don't have a you know, a quite demand power yet that we would need to be able to do that. But as the head coach in college, you're going to find most of us, most of the head coaches completely involved in personnel decisions and making sure they're monitoring what's going on on that side of the ball as well as the pure football
end of it. But again for assistant coaches, we try to keep them completely out of the business end and just in the football end.
I see, how are you, as a delegator coach getting better?
You know? It's been a process, yeah, and twenty one years into it now, I guess I've learned a few things in that regard and I'm more you know, just letting a few things go, not letting them go. But turning them over to other people and just being able to trust them and make sure, you know, I feel
good about that it's going to get done. And that's that's been something that you know, I have gotten better and I still could probably do a better job of it, but you know, just I am who I am, but I'd say I've made improvement in that area.
Catching up with coach with headball coach Utah football a couple weeks away from Utah springball, you reference UCLA opening game. Haven't been able to tick the tires with you on the schedule since I came out. But my main question is October eighteenth, Saturday at BUYU. I just I don't know. For me, coach, I feel like that should be during rivalry week. I like it either beginning or the end,
and it's smack dab in the middle of October. What were your thoughts when you saw the release in the game against Brigham Young was October.
Eighteenth, Well, it wasn't the first thing I looked at. I can tell you that it's obviously that we take them in order as they as they unfold, and we've got a big one at UCLA on the thirtieth against a really good Big Ten opponent. I mean, they struggled last year, but there's no shortest of personnel down there, I can promise you that. And so they'll be athletic, they'll be fast, they'll be well coached, and so it'd
be the second year in their coach Foster. And you know, we got to be turning all our attention, all our you know, all our focus on that obviously. But you're right, you know, we do have a rivalry game, and it would seem to make sense that would be put at the end of the season. But so far the Big twelve has not got to that point yet. I don't know, haven't had discussion with him and say, you know why, But right now that's something that they have not implemented.
I wonder if this moves the needle for you at all, because obviously the leaders of the SEC and the Big Ten continue to meet without everybody else in college football to dictate with the future or of college football is going to look like.
And there it seems like they're kind of calling the shots.
They want to expand the CFP with more aqs for their conferences, and obviously, and you've been front facing and honest about this if you are not part of that lunch table, you and you're in a safe landing spot at and P four conference. But is there any concern as a member of the Big twelve what the Big ten and the SEC seem to continue to try to do with this power play?
Well, I don't know if concerns the right word, but I think that we don't have much say. I mean, they're they're the they're the power brokers, and that's just how it is, and they're going to, you know, be the ones that call most of the shots, don't. I don't see any other way around that. I would personally like it to get to sixteen teams as you know,
full bown playoff. And I've been saying that they will get there eventually for a lot of years and people say, oh, it's not going to be you know, for several years. But here here we're looking at going from twelve to sixteen you know, very soon, and so we'll see what happens.
But answer your question, I mean, they're they're the guys that have the most clout, have the most say, and that's just you know, at least at the present and during the present time, in this present setup, that is not going to change in the foreseeable future.
All right, coach, before I say you loose, I just appreciate your time.
You know, I didn't cover the story of whether or not you would come back very much because in my mind, Mike, he's a coach that's under contract.
He simply could just continue to coach. It's his job.
But there was a release that was made indicating that you were coming back. So I just for our listeners, I think they would be very curious to know what you juggled after the season, what you kind of processed, what you went through before landing on Yes, I want to keep doing this.
Well, you juggle everything in your process everything, and so it's it's not any one thing. I can tell you. One of the overriding factors, and one of the more factors that was way more heavily was you know, the disappointing season that we had in the way that things unfolded and get into our fifth QB and all that stuff. For me, it was just very frustrating. But but again, nobody feels sorry for us. I'm not trying to to uh, you know, create create sympathy or anything like that. It
was just as frustrating as things were. It you know, would have left a bad taste in my mouth to have that be the you know, the final goal around and so that that was a big factor. But again everything was involved my energy levels. Uh, you know, what's best for the program and that that ultimately is the most important thing, is what's best for the program going forward. And uh, that's uh, you know, that was a big part of the.
Decision swinging a golf club at all. Say that again, you're swinging a golf club at all yet? Are you just waiting for the weather?
Yeah, yeah, not yet, and that'll that'll come after spring ball. But you know, through through the end of spring ball, it's all football.
All right, my friend, Well, thank you so much for the time. As always, it's always a pleasure. Best of luck and hopefully we can do it again soon.
Okay, Spencer, appreciate it.
There is coach wait, head coach of the Utah football program. We are just a couple of weeks away from spring ball. Interesting stuff there, as Kyle, you know, he he indicated that the conversations going on around Utah right now do include potentially shifting away from the what Utah calls the twenty two Forever Game, the spring game. I've always enjoyed the spring game. I've always enjoyed spring football. I mean
from a content creation standpoint. When you're covering the team as a sports soccer radio host, you always just want things to talk about. But Oklahoma became the latest team to adjust their spring football kind of ethos. They're going to have a spring football event, but it's not going to be a game. As of now, USC Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska have either canceled or shifted their spring game paradigm.
And I get it.
Man one o five roster limit. You know, that's down from about one twenty eight. Every player will be able to receive a scholarship. It does eliminate walk ons, which is thirty percent of college football. There'll be about two thousand kids that don't get to play college football this fall because of the new roster limit. So some challenges for coach Wit and that staff up there, But I always appreciate his times