Imagine Mike Gundy and Deion Sanders shooting dice at the craps table, Sonny Dykes and Lance Leipold seeing a show at the Sphere and Kalani Sitake and Kyle Whittingham riding the roller coaster at New York New York.
Big 12 media days are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Las Vegas. Coaches and players from the new-look, 16-team conference will convene at Allegiant Stadium to preview the upcoming season.
Oklahoma and Texas are out, and the Four Corner schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — are in.
Utah was picked in the preseason media poll to win the conference. Arizona State was picked to finish last.
Here’s one big question for each team heading into Big 12 Media Days. We’ll go in order of the preseason poll, starting with the Utes and finishing with the Sun Devils.
1. Utah
Is quarterback Cameron Rising healthy entering his seventh year?
That’s right, this is Year 7 for Rising, who recently turned 25.
Rising, who redshirted one year at Texas before transferring to Utah, is older than Brock Purdy for goodness sake. Older than Trevor Lawrence. Older than Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman!
Rising led the Utes to back-to-back Pac-12 titles in 2021 and 2022, but he missed all of last season after tearing his knee up in the 2023 Rose Bowl.
Utah managed to go 8-5 last season, but its offense tanked without Rising. Utah ranked 94th in yards per game and 96th in points per game. The Utes ranked 120th in passing offense among the 132 Bowl Subdivision teams.
For his career, Rising has completed 64% of his passes with a 46 to 14 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Utah was picked to win the league with the expectation that Rising is back to his old self, but it’s not a given.
Utah quarterback Cameron Rising, middle, talks to teammates during warms ups before the team’s game in 2023 against Arizona at…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/big-12-football-media-days-141845128.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2024-07-09 14:18:45
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