When BYU and Utah play on Nov. 9 at Rice-Eccles Stadium for the first time in three seasons, the Utes will be without the services of another quarterback.
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham shared on KSL Sports Zone Friday morning that transfer Sam Huard is out for the season after having surgery.
“Sam Huard had a surgery some time ago that has ended his season,” Whittingham told David James and Patrick Kinahan on their morning radio show. “He’s not physically able to perform and he’s out for the rest of the year.”
Huard, who never played in a game for the Utes this season, joined Utah in this offseason as a post-spring transfer from Cal Poly. He was a five-star recruit out of high school and played his first two collegiate seasons at Washington, where he played in five games total and started a game for the Huskies in 2021.
This shortens the depth at quarterback for the Utes, who lost starter Cam Rising for the season just a few weeks ago following a loss at Arizona State.
It leaves Utah with just three quarterbacks available for the rest of the season — Isaac Wilson, Brandon Rose and Luke Bottari.
Wilson has started five games this season, including the past two games after Rising was lost for the year. Rose replaced Wilson in the third quarter of the team’s most recent game, a 17-14 loss at Houston — Utah’s coach said the move was to try and provide a spark for what’s largely been a stagnant offense during a four-game losing streak.
On Tuesday, Whittingham said Wilson and Rose were splitting reps during Utah’s bye week ahead of their game against instate rival BYU. He affirmed that during his appearance on KSL Sports Zone on Friday.
“They’re splitting reps this week and competing for the spot. They both have big arms — they’re very similar in that way — and they both can move around pretty good in the pocket and are pretty elusive,” Whittingham said.
“We’ve got to be more accurate throwing the football. There are a lot of things that have to happen on offense, but we’ve got a competition going on right now and we’ve got to get it settled by early next week when we get back to practice.”
Whitingham also told the radio show there isn’t a competitive advantage to publicly announcing who the Utes will start at quarterback against BYU prior to the game.
“We practiced Tuesday, Wednesday, and we’ll go today, then give them a few days off, and then get back at it Monday and by Monday we have to have the pecking order at quarterback,” Whittingham said.
“We probably won’t announce that. There’s no reason to, it doesn’t offer any competitive advantage,” he said. “It’s probably a disadvantage to announce it. So, we won’t publicly announce it and (then we’ll) line up and play on Saturday.”
