Utah cornerback Kenan Johnson out for the season

Utah cornerback Kenan Johnson is out for the rest of the season, coach Kyle Whittingham announced on Monday.

Just 13 snaps into his senior season last Thursday against Southern Utah, Johnson went down with an injury away from the play and was attended to by the Utes’ athletic training staff.

He was helped off the field and couldn’t put much, if any, weight on his leg and was later seen on crutches and wearing a knee brace.

Whittingham said after Utah’s 49-0 win over SUU that it “didn’t look good” for Johnson, and imaging confirmed that this weekend.

If Johnson wants it, Whittingham said that it would be a “slam dunk” for him to get another year via a medical redshirt. Johnson, a transfer from Georgia Tech, won the starting cornerback job out of fall camp and impressed Utah’s coaches with his play since arriving in Salt Lake City ahead of spring camp.

Elijah Davis replaced Johnson during the Southern Utah game and played well, picking off SUU quarterback Jackson Berry for Utah’s first takeaway of the season. He’ll be in the mix to step up for Johnson long-term, along with Michigan transfer freshman Cameron Calhoun, who had offseason surgery but is back this week for the Utes.

Another option is nickel back Smith Snowden moving outside. Snowden had an “exceptional” game at nickel, Whittingham said, and is very capable of playing outside corner.

Postgame, Whittingham said one answer would be starting free safety Tao Johnson moving to corner — he started at nickel last year — but said “we don’t want to have to do that.”

“Right now we don’t have the exact answer and configuration, but we’ll take a look at the configurations in practice and determine in the next day or two what the best one’s going to be,” Whittingham said on Monday.

Senior defensive tackle Aliki Vimahi was also injured during Thursday night’s opener, suffering a lower-body injury, and had to be helped off the field. Like Johnson, Whittingham feared that it “didn’t look good” for Vimahi postgame, but after tests, Vimahi did not suffer a season-ending injury.

“We feared there for a while that it maybe was extremely serious, but looks like he’s going to be back with us at some point,” Whittingham said.

Utes on the air

Utah (1-0) vs. Baylor (1-0)

Saturday, 1:30 p.m. MDT

Rice-Eccles Stadium

Salt Lake City, Utah

TV: Fox

Radio: ESPN 700 AM/ 92.1 FM.