How did Utah’s offense perform this season?

Editor’s note: First in a series wrapping up Utah football’s 2023 season.

Utah’s 2023 season began full of hope, but ended with a thud in Las Vegas.

Allegiant Stadium, which provided Utah fans with some great memories during the Utes’ back-to-back Pac-12 championships, was the site of another bad offensive performance in a season that had its fair share of them.

Season-ending injuries aplenty hampered the Utes — quarterback Cam Rising, tight end Brant Kuithe, tight end Thomas Yassmin, running back Chris Curry, wide receiver Mycah Pittman, linebacker Lander Barton, defensive end Logan Fano and defensive end Jonah Elliss (missed last two games), plus running back Micah Bernard, who missed all but two games.

Several other players missed at least a couple of games.

With all of that in mind, an 8-4 record after the regular season, with losses to Oregon State, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, all of whom finished in the final College Football Playoff Top 25, would have been considered a pretty successful year under the circumstances.

Utah’s “next man up mentality” was tested, and for the most part, the depth did a fairly good job this season.

“I told the guys in the locker room, they got a lot to be proud of. They found a way to win eight games this year in a very competitive Pac-12 conference with two other Power Five schools on our schedule with Florida and Baylor,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

“And so in a way, remarkable how well they did during the course of the regular season. It’s not what any of us had in mind as we were going through the offseason last year and preparing. We thought the three-peat was very realistic but didn’t turn out to be. But given the adversity they faced, I thought they handled that very well, and like I said, just to get here with an 8-4 record was very commendable.”

But a 14-7 Las Vegas Bowl loss to Northwestern magnified some season-long offensive problems and eroded some of that goodwill gained in the regular season. Utah lost three of its last four games to close the season and extended its bowl losing streak to five games.

The bane of this season for the Utes was their offense, which scored just 23.1 points per game (96th in the nation) and had four games in which they scored 14 points or less.

Here’s a look at how each position group on the Utes’ offense performed in 2023.

Quarterback

The mismanagement of the quarterback situation, the dominant story of the season, was on full display in Utah’s Las Vegas Bowl loss.

Bryson Barnes, who entered the transfer portal prior to bowl season, still played vs. Northwestern because Utah felt like he gave the Utes the best chance to win.

In his worst game of the season, Barnes completed 8 of 13 passing for 55 yards and threw two interceptions, finishing with a quarterback rating of 66.3.

Following an incredibly poor first half in which he was 4 for 8 for 10 yards and -21 yards rushing — he was sacked three times — his quarterback rating was 10.5.

In fairness to Barnes, he was never supposed to be Utah’s full-time starter. That was supposed to be Rising, but he never got to 100% after undergoing surgery for in January to repair his torn ACL, meniscus, MPFL and MCL.

Utah didn’t try to get a quarterback in the transfer portal this offseason, with Whittingham stating that he didn’t know who would have come to Utah with Rising as the presumptive starter.

“We were expecting that we’d be set and I don’t know who we could have attracted knowing that Cam was coming back. ... Who’s going to come sit behind Cam?” Whittingham said.

“If you’re in the portal, you’re in the portal to go play somewhere, not sit again. ... That was not an ideal situation for really any quarterback to come to us this past offseason.”

So, without Rising, the job went to Barnes after he beat out Nate Johnson and Brandon Rose suffered an injury in fall camp that left him out of commission for about two months.

After beating Florida in the opener — the 70-yard touchdown pass from Barnes to Money Parks on the opening play was one of the highlights of the season — a poor performance at Baylor found Barnes benched, but Johnson didn’t fare much better.

After leading the Utes to the win in the Baylor game, Johnson couldn’t get Utah’s offense going in a win over UCLA and a loss to Oregon State, with Utah scoring a combined 14 offensive points.

After the bye, it was back to Barnes, who responded with a win against Cal and a thrilling performance against USC, including a 26-yard run on Utah’s final drive to set up the winning field goal from Cole Becker.

Barnes also gave Utah life in the first half at Washington before fading in the second half, and after that, Utah failed to score 21 points in its last three games (Barnes did not play in the regular season finale against Colorado).

The former walk-on quarterback, who was awarded a scholarship this season after the Florida game, often held the ball too long and didn’t progress through his reads fast enough, had a 58% completion rate and was too turnover-prone.

Barnes competed his heart out, but down the stretch of the season, it was clear that he couldn’t guide Utah’s offense to more production.

Most curious of all was the case of Rose. In October, Whittingham said that Rose was “on the path” for a medical redshirt after he missed two months earlier in the season, but even when he stated that, Whittingham also said that if Rose gave the Utes the best chance to win, he would play him.

As Barnes struggled through the Las Vegas Bowl, questions grew as to whether Rose would be inserted into the game.

Postgame, Whittingham said the redshirt wasn’t a consideration, rather that Rose wasn’t ready for game action yet.

“He just is not ready to do that yet. He’s just not grasped the offense and decision making,” Whittingham said.

“He’s still in the learning stage — his learning stage — and he’s got a lot of things going for him. He’s got a big arm and he moves around pretty good, so it’s not indicative of where he could be at some point in time, but he’s just not ready to be thrust in there right now.”

It’s puzzling why Rose is still in the “learning stage” after two years in the program. Make no mistake, under Ludwig, Utah has developed some good quarterbacks and delivered some great offenses — look no further than Rising and Tyler Huntley. This year, however, the depth and development behind Rising did not appear to be there.

Utah’s lack of a passing game for the majority of the year made life difficult for the other positions on offense.

Position group MVP: Bryson Barnes. Barnes wins this by default after being the quarterback for the majority of the season. He did have some great moments — the 75-yard touchdown against Florida, the Cal win, the game-winning USC drive and first half against Washington. He finished the year 142 of 242 passing for 1,572 yards, 12 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

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Offensive line

Projected to be one of the most solid groups on the offense heading into the season, the offensive line never quite lived up to the lofty expectations in 2023.

The unit really started clicking when Kolinu’u Faaiu was made the starting center ahead of the Cal game, and Utah responded by putting up season-high offensive performances.

Against Oregon, though, Utah’s offensive line got pushed around in a way that it hasn’t been historically.

After responding in a 55-3 win over Arizona State, the group was tabbed by Whittingham as a factor in the Washington and Northwestern losses.

In fairness, it’s hard for an offensive line to be dominant when teams are stacking the box due to an ineffective passing offense, but Utah does have to improve up front next season.

Two of Utah’s best offensive linemen this year — Keaton Bills and Sataoa Laumea — are headed to the NFL draft. The rest of Utah’s offensive line that started at least two games — Michael Mokofisi, Spencer Fano, Faaiu, Tanoa Togiai and Jaren Kump — graded out at a 64.2 or lower, per Pro Football Focus.

Position group MVP: Keaton Bills. Bills was consistent for the Utes, playing in 12 games and generally grading out well with a Pro Football Focus grade of 71.2.

Running back

As previously mentioned, when teams know you’re going to run the ball, it’s going to be really tough to consistently be productive.

The Utes still finished in the top 30 in the country in rushing production, gaining 182.5 yards per game.

This group took a big hit due to injuries, as Chris Curry missed all but three games due to a season-ending injury and Micah Bernard missed all but two games due to an injury.

Utah’s four-star freshman running back trio — John Randle Jr., Mike Mitchell and Dijon Stanley — never really saw the field, leaving the bulk of the carries to Ja’Quinden Jackson and Jaylon Glover.

Jackson was never fully healthy this season, dealing with an ankle injury dating back to fall camp, but gutted it out the whole season. He carried the ball 161 times in 2023, gaining 797 yards and scoring four touchdowns.

Glover was the secondary back, carrying it 137 times for 562 yards and two scores and safety Sione Vaki played both ways, carrying the ball 42 times for 317 yards and two touchdowns.

Position group MVP: Ja’Quinden Jackson, who just kept battling out there even as he had to go to the sideline in the majority of games to get retaped or checked out, but would be back on the field a few plays later.

Wide receivers

Wide receivers are dependent on their quarterback, so the position group as a whole didn’t have eye-popping numbers this season.

Devaughn Vele had 43 catches for 593 yards and three touchdowns to lead the group, and came on strong in the second half of the season as Utah strived to get the ball to him more often.

Money Parks was second in the room with 293 yards and two touchdowns on 31 receptions, Munir McClain had 269 yards on 15 catches and Mikey Matthews had 261 yards on 29 receptions. Vaki added some production to the room with 11 catches for 203 yards and three scores.

As a whole, the room was decent, but they could only go as far as their quarterback.

With Vele, Matthews and Vaki gone next season, the Utes will need to fill their production next year.

Position group MVP: Devaughn Vele. Vele returned for his senior season and added some valuable tape for his NFL draft prospects.

Tight end

The loss of Brant Kuithe this season really hurt the tight end room.

Thomas Yassmin was also lost for the season against Oregon State, so the tight-end heavy sets that Ludwig used a lot in the past couple of seasons didn’t really make an appearance in 2023.

The big positive from the group this season was the emergence of Landen King. The Auburn transfer tight end was the fourth-most targeted receiver by Utah quarterbacks, finishing the season with 14 receptions for 166 yards and three touchdowns.

While he’ll have to add 15 to 20 pounds in the offseason, which has been a constant theme throughout the year when talking to Utah’s coaches, the thought of King in two tight-end sets with Kuithe, should he choose to return, is exciting.

King was the pass-catching tight end, while Miki Suguturaga was more of the blocking tight end this season.

Position group MVP: Landen King. Perhaps nobody has been as outwardly supportive of his teammates as King, who has fit well into Utah’s culture. Expect big things from him next season.