Kyle Whittingham gives his thoughts on hit that injured Cam Rising

The one thing Utah’s coaches wanted to see the least played out in front of them on the opposite sideline Saturday afternoon at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

In the second quarter of Utah’s 23-12 win over Baylor , Bears linebacker Keaton Thomas came right up the middle on a blitz, forcing Utah quarterback Cam Rising to scramble to his left.

Rising ran toward Baylor’s sideline, pursued by Baylor defensive lineman Trevan Ma’ae, and as Ma’ae began to tackle him inbounds and toward the sideline, Rising threw the ball and was tackled into the Gatorade coolers off the field. He immediately grabbed his middle finger on his right hand — his throwing hand — while yelling.

Rising went to the Utah locker room for examination and then spent the entire second half on the sideline in street clothes, with his middle and ring fingers taped together.

All offseason, both head coach Kyle Whittingham and offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig have been vocal about stressing the need for Rising to protect himself as much as possible by avoiding unnecessary hits, throwing the ball away and limiting his running of the ball.

When Rising ran four times against Southern Utah, it was pretty clear that when the lights come on, it’s hard to follow through with a wholesale change of your instincts and style of play. Running is something that Rising has used to his advantage throughout his career — he eclipsed 1,000 career rushing yards on Saturday — and it’s hard to turn that part of your game off after utilizing it for so long.

“It’s football, you got to do stuff,” Rising said after the win over Southern Utah.

On Monday, Whittingham was asked if Rising was doing everything he could to protect himself from injury.

“Not everything, but that’s who he is. He’s so competitive. He’s a fierce competitor, as I’ve said over and over. And when he’s out there, his competitive instinct is just, it’s just there and it’s hard to shut that off,” Whittingham said. “We’d like to see him be even more cautious and even more cognizant of staying out of harm’s way.

“But again, it’s hard when you got a guy that is that, and I keep going back to the same word, competitive. It’s not an easy task.”

While Rising’s finger injury is not believed to be serious, and Whittingham said postgame that the seventh-year Utah quarterback “may be back this week,” he was mum about the status of Rising for Saturday’s matchup against Utah State during Monday’s press conference.

“We don’t give any injury updates unless they’re season-ending, so we won’t say who’s going to play quarterback, even when we know,” Whittingham said.

“It’s just not how we do it, so we’ll see what happens, but other than Cam going out, we seemed to stay very healthy in that game.”

If Rising does not play against the Aggies, it’ll be true freshman Isaac Wilson at quarterback for the Utes. He’s played for a little more than a half in both of Utah’s games, going 7 for 11 for 74 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions against Southern Utah and 4 for 9 for 30 yards against Baylor.

“When Isaac came into this, particularly in the second half, we were really trying to just get out of there with the win and just do our best to protect the football,” Whittingham said. “And so I thought Isaac ... I thought he’s played better last week than he did the previous week, the last game and had more command, had more confidence, looked like he played with more confidence and I think that he came in and held down the fort for us.”

Postgame, Whittingham said he needed to watch the play that Rising got hurt on again because it was hard to see from his vantage point on the opposite sideline. He said that it “looked like a late hit situation or unnecessary roughness situation,” but would reserve judgment until he saw the film.

After watching the tape, Whittingham said Monday that while the hit from Ma’ae started inbounds, there was some arm extension when Rising was out of bounds.

“If I was the official on that call, I would’ve called it, if I was the official,” Whittingham said. “It looked like certainly the hit started out, it looked inbounds and as it progressed, looked like there was some arm extension and maybe a little extra shove.”

Asked jokingly by another reporter if Whittingham thought he’d take up officiating after he retired from coaching, the longtime Utah coach gave that a “zero percent” chance.

“Yes, I respect those guys and they got a tough job,” Whittingham said, “but that’s not for me.”