Is there an echo in here? I swear, there’s an echo in here.
Based on an assortment of 2025 Big 12 football prognostications from people who are supposed to know about such things regarding Utah and BYU, each of which just opened preseason camps, you would think that what actually happened last season never happened at all and that what is predicted to happen this time around is pretty much the same that was expected exactly one year ago at this time.
Utah good, maybe great. BYU … um, not so good, kind of middling.
Utah will win or contend for a league title. BYU will get lost in the mediocre malaise of a conference loaded up with teams just like the Cougars, equal or superior in talent to them.
Utah will benefit from the vast gifts of a quarterback who proved his value in previous seasons in a previous league. He might even get Heisman consideration. BYU has major questions at quarterback, questions that begin with this little ditty: Is whoever takes the wheel for the Cougars capable of being what BYU almost always needs and often has had — a high-caliber QB who can lead it to important wins?
Utah has a big, strong offensive line, headed by guys who could be projected as top-drawer NFL prospects, surrounded by other guys up front who can grade road for a proficient rushing attack. BYU will have to find offensive weapons upon whom an inexperienced quarterback can lean in times of fortune and misfortune.
Utah has a tough-minded, tough-bodied defense, led by standouts at linebacker and in both the front and back ends. BYU has a handful of defensive stars and a handful of holes to fill, prompting another significant question: Can the Cougars get pressure on opposing quarterbacks without using extra assets to stir the kind of discomfort that knocks opposing QBs out of sync and out of rhythm?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah football head coach Kyle Whittingham answers questions during a news conference at the University of Utah on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
Utah has Kyle Whittingham, a coach’s coach, a coach everyone respects, who just might retire at season’s end if the Utes have the kind of season that Whittingham considers suitable for punctuating a stellar career. Morgan Scalley, a helluva defensive coordinator, is waiting for that point of punctuation. BYU has Kalani Sitake, a nice coach who runs a nice program, and what happens to his team in this particular season will not be indicative of his program in its totality. Jay Hill, a helluva defensive coordinator, is waiting for a head-coaching position he deserves to open up, somewhere, someday.
Back to the quarterbacks: Utah’s has to stay healthy, absolutely has to, even though he’s a mad-capper who likes to take chances, to take off running when he senses the opportunity to do so. BYU’s is being pieced together as we speak out on the proving grounds, given that he’s never done much in the past and, in fact, coaches have not yet figured who the starter will be. That’s what they say, anyway. They have their hard suspicions, but they’re as curious as everyone else to see what fall camp will reveal.
There you have it — prospects for 2025 largely mirroring, sitting in the shadow of prospects for 2024. Some of the names have changed, but many of the circumstances remain. Search the far reaches of your memory banks, go back and re-read and re-listen to what was written and said a year ago about these teams. Not every last thing is precisely the same, but more than a few of those things are close, if not in every detail, in a hundred of them.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah quarterback Devon Dampier (4) celebrates a touchdown at the Utah Utes spring football game in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 19, 2025.
Guesses last time from this corner and from others landed a thousand miles off course, although, as far as the Utes were concerned, one significant proviso was attached: Cam Rising had to stay upright, stay able to grip and spin the spheroid. We know how that turned out, and we know that Utah’s attack never recovered from the oft-injured QB’s ailments. Just like it probably won’t recover if Devon Dampier can’t stay healthy. Hate to even put those words in print before the real action begins, but there they are.
Similarly, BYU was in a fog over its quarterback situation last summer, not wholly different than it is now. Either that or Sitake was a bald-faced liar. He swore he had no idea who his starter would be at that all-important position. Jake Retzlaff had done little theretofore to provide any authentic assurance that he could lead BYU’s offense, that he could avoid the kinds of turnovers that had plagued him in his short work the season before.
He wasn’t officially announced as QB1 until he took the field against Southern Illinois in the opener. Some had hoped it would be Gerry Bohanon. Said Sitake: “I only know one way — play the guy who earned it.”
Even those in and around the program weren’t convinced.
Nobody’s convinced now, either. Sitake said on a recent Big 12 media day: “It’s the same thing. We just have to figure out who’s going to earn the spot, who deserves it.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU QB, McCae Hillstead (3), at the Cougars spring practice, on Thursday, Feb 27, 2025.
Many people believe McCae Hillstead, all 5-foot-nuthin’ of him, will get the nod. Others hope it will be the youngster Bear Bachmeier, a talented freshman who transferred in from Stanford without ever having taken a live snap there. Others wonder about Treyson Bourguet.
Plug in Sitake’s quote from a year ago: “I only know one way — play the guy who earn(s) it.”
That guy is already in place for Utah. Dampier has impressed Whittingham with his overall leadership, quickly having taken charge of the Ute attack. One certainty is that the New Mexico transfer can move with the football, having gained in excess of 1,100 yards on the ground last season and rushed for 19 touchdowns with the Lobos. He also passed for nearly 3,000 yards. Think about what that might do for Utah in the red zone. A quarterback who can run it or throw it when yards are tough to gain in tight spaces. It’s a huge advantage. Watch for Utah’s TD percentage in the red zone to surge in 2025.
That’s the expectation, just like all the aforementioned others, for the Utes. Same as it ever was, even before a 5-7 season. Say it all plain here: Utah football’s too good to endure that kind of nonsense again, losing so many games by narrow margins. One more caveat: If Dampier is careless with the ball, no matter how much Whittingham loves him, the thin line that separates love from loathing will grow thin enough for the latter to swamp the former.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU football coach Kalani Sitake celebrates the teams 38-35 win over the Oklahoma State Cowboys to remain undefeated in Provo on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024.
The general expectation for BYU is — just like its preseason QB situation this year and last — fogged over. Sitake, especially with the aid of Hill’s defense, blew that fog away in 2024. If he’s able to do that again, against the odds, annual expectations might launch into the ionosphere, regularly rearranging those odds and expectations and echos, too, regardless of how experienced or inexperienced, how effective or ineffective his quarterback is or, rather, is thought to be.
Oh, and there’s this from Sitake: “We don’t really worry about what other people say.”
Whether that’s true or not, he said the same exact thing a year ago at this time, before his team, picked at a subterranean level as it was, went 11-2.