Rising, Kuithe ready to roll as 2024 season kicks off

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 Sports) – Cam Rising was in street clothes for every game during the 2023 season while recovering from knee surgery.

But the Utes senior quarterback is 100 percent healthy, and getting high praise from Kyle Whittingham.

“He’s right now functioning as well as he ever has,” Whittingham said. “His arm strength is back. The leg feels great, and just no limitations. I mean, he’s ready to roll.”

“I love this team,” Rising said after Monday’s practice. “Just to be a small part of it and have that much respect from Coach Whitt is unreal. I love Coach. That’s the guy. The guy I always dreamed about playing for, so just to have him say that is special for sure.”

The key to the entire season is to keep Rising healthy, so they will try to limit his running ability.

“Preservation is the key with him as far as when he decides to tuck the ball and run it,” Whittingham said. “You’re going to see very little QB run game.”

Former Utes quarterback Alex Smith, who is being inducted into the Utah Football Ring of Honor Thursday, came back from a major leg injury of his own when he was playing in the NFL with Washington, albeit a much more serious one that almost took his life.

“I just looked at his story and just have a tremendous amount of respect,” Rising said about Smith. “Knowing that he could get back and still do everything that he’s been able to, I knew that I could do it.”

Brant Kuithe has been out longer than Rising, and he cannot wait to catch that first pass and take that first hit.

“It feels good,” Kuithe said, who hasn’t played a game since September, 2022. “I’m just ready. It’s been a long fall camp, so it’s going to be fun being out there. It’s going to feel good getting hit, and just excited to get after this game and then go on to the next.”

The Utes defense knows how frustrating opposing defenses are going to feel trying to slow Kuithe down.

“It was annoying in camp for us, but cool for us now, I guess,” said Utes linebacker Karene Reid. “But he’s the man, he’s the real deal. He’s done everything that they say he is.”

“He’s a weapon for us, and he’s looked great in practice,” Whittingham said about Kuithe. “We have been intelligent with how we’ve used him. We have given him a few practices off here and there just to make sure that we don’t overdo it. But he is arguably one of the top two or three receiving tight ends in the nation.”

Whittington’s biggest concern going into training camp was that running back. But now he’s comfortable with his stable of backs that include Micah Bernard, Jaylon Glover and Mike Mitchell.

“Yeah, I feel good about it, even though we don’t have a clear cut RB1,” Whittingham said. “It’s not the end of the world that we don’t have that, but we have the two tiers of running backs where Micah Bernard, Jaylen, Glover and Mitchell have been in that first group. They will see the vast majority of the playing time.”

Coming off a disappointing 8-5 season, their worst record since 2017, the Utes are eager to reestablish themselves once again as one of the nation’s best teams.

“Everybody was disappointed last year, and we used that as motivation during the off season,” Whittingham said. “You get bigger, stronger, more durable, and we’re and looking forward to being the team that we know we.”

Utah will kick off against Southern Utah Thursday at Rice-Eccles Stadium at 7:00 p.m.

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