Utah football: Kyle Whittingham on Ja’Quinden Jackson’s health, bigger roles coming for two freshmen

The Utes are riding high and feeling good.

That tends to happen when you’re just a few days removed from annihilating a conference opponent by a 55-3 margin.

Then again, Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham doesn’t feel any good ever comes from lingering too long on the past, and thus is always keen to turn the page as fast as possible.

Such was the case at his weekly media session at the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center on Monday morning, where rehashing the win against Arizona State was minimal, while the coming matchup with No. 5 Washington dominated the conversation.

There’s plenty of time yet to dissect the Utes’ thoughts about and chances against the Huskies. In the interim, Whittingham offered up plenty of other intriguing tidbits during his session.

The health of his star running back

Ja’Quinden Jackson has been banged up for much of the year, and at the tail end of a 54-yard touchdown run, was tackled awkwardly and tweaked his sprained ankle.

So, what’s Jackson’s status for Saturday vs. Washington? Well, Whittingham isn’t in the habit of delivering definitive injury information when it’s not required, but reading between the lines Monday, it sounds like a scenario where “JJ” will give what he can, but that might not be tons.

“[He’s] exceptionally tough. First of all, he has battled it all season long, and he just keeps coming back. It’s a process of, during the week, he gets it as good as he can get it, then on game day he just lets it rip until he can’t go anymore,” Whittingham said. “We’ll see about this week and what his availability is — right now it’s a question mark.”

Vaki/Johnson change-ups

Safety Sione Vaki was an absolute game-changer on offense in the wins against Cal and USC, then was a little-used, ineffectual non-factor vs. Oregon, and didn’t see a single offensive snap vs. ASU.

Nate Johnson, meanwhile, has been relegated to backup quarterback duty behind Bryson Barnes, though his speed remains a significant weapon, as evidenced by his brief appearance late in the Sun Devils game.

So, given that the Utes will need some offensive explosiveness to keep up with Washington, what’s the likelihood we see some subpackages featuring one or both of them?

Whittingham wasn’t giving anything away — except that that the figure he mentioned previously about Vaki’s game snaps being divided up on a 70% defense, 30% offense split might have been overselling things.

Yeah, that’s about the maximum — 70/30. And, you know, maybe 80/20 depending how the game goes,” the coach said. “But somewhere in that neighborhood is what we think is probably the tipping point of not overdoing it.”

Tons of no-huddle to come?

After the Oregon loss, Whittingham lamented not using more of the no-huddle scheme that produced some yardage near the end of the first half. And early in the win vs. the Sun Devils, Utah did decide to go uptempo more often, which contributed to touchdowns on the first two drives.

So, more of that to come then, right?

Actually, sounds like a case of when as opposed to how much.

“No-huddle for us, as much as anything, is the timing of it. Not necessarily that we do it, but when we do it is key for us,” Whittingham said. “I think no-huddle is most effective that way — if you do it the entire game, it’s not as effective as if you if you turn it on and off.”

Offensive X-factor to watch

With Jackson banged up, and both Micah Bernard and Chris Curry out for the season, some have wondered when the Utes’ trio of highly-regarded freshman running backs would get thrown into the fire.

Dijon Stanley saw some action last Saturday, and while his six carries for seven yards won’t wow anyone, the one time he got split out wide, hauled in a reception one yard past the line of scrimmage, and then juked his way to 13 more grabbed some people’s attention.

“When we were looking for guys to supplement what we’re doing offensively, he was a guy that stood out in practice. We thought, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can get him out in space a little bit and [make something happen],’ and he’s really excelled at that. I mean, there’s not a big sample size, but the opportunities he’s got, he’s done well,” said Whittingham. “He’s also a really valuable special teams contributor — he’s one of our gunners on punt [coverage], he runs down on kickoffs, I mean, he does a lot of things special teams-wise, too. He’s got a bright future here. We really like him.”

Defensive X-factor to watch

Utah’s defense has been pretty good all season, and while that was probably expected of the D-line and linebacking units, the secondary’s success is probably a bit more surprising.

Yes, they’ve been susceptible to the occasional big play, but Vaki and Cole Bishop as the safeties, Zemaiah Vaughn and JaTravis Broughton as the outside corners, Tao Johnson in the slot, and Nate Ritchie and Miles Battle as key backups, have all been incredibly solid.

Which has made it difficult for freshman and Lehi native Smith Snowden to crack the rotation in the defensive backfield. But he did this past Saturday. And he’ll probably become a very familiar face before too long.

“He played exceptionally well, he got like 37 reps, and made the most of it — performed exceptionally well for his first real opportunity,” said Whittingham. “He’s been on special teams throughout the season, but we decided that it was time for him to see what he could do in a game situation on defense, and he answered the bell. He played exceptionally well.

“Tao Johnson has been and is still the starting nickel, but down the road, next year, Tao is probably going to move either to outside corner or free safety, and Smith is a prototypical slot corner,” Whittingham added. “So we feel like that is his future, what you saw him do Saturday.”