Know Your Foe: Get to know the Gators' first opponent the Utah Utes
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — There is a new era beginning for the Florida Gators‘ football program. The Billy Napier era will officially begin on September 3, as the Gators host the No. 7 Utah Utes.
Utah finished the 2021 campaign as the Pac-12 Champions. Kyle Whittingham’s team finished the regular season with a 9-3 record. They beat Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game and fell just three points short of beating Ohio State in the Rose Bowl to finish 10-4.
Whittingham has a small connection to UF. He took over the head coaching job at Utah in 2005, replacing Urban Meyer. Meyer, of course, left Utah to accept the head coaching job at Florida and went on to win two National Championships in Gainesville.
The Gators don’t have a coach entering his 18th season at the helm, like Whittingham at Utah. Billy Napier was hired 276 days before the game will kick off. There are much easier ways to begin your tenure, something Napier jokingly acknowledged at SEC Media Days.
“I really believe that having a formidable opponent in the opener is healthy for your team. As much as you want to think our team is not going to be affected by who they play or where they play, I do think we got a little bit of that human nature in it and I think our staff and team has so much respect for coach Wittingham and that Utah program and the consistency with which they perform,” Napier said at SEC Media Days. “They certainly had a heck of a team last year. They got a good group coming back and we’re excited about the thing that comes with it and I think it’s healthy for our team to have that out there that we have a top-10 team and the Pac-12 Champion coming into the Swamp so I think it’s healthy for our team.”
With that in mind, Gators Online reached out to Josh Newman of The Salt Lake Tribune. Newman has covered the Utes since 2019 and knows the team inside and out. He graciously answered our questions so that Gator fans can better know their opponent on September 3.
This will be the first of six questions that we dig into leading up to the game.
What are the Gators getting into on September 3?
Q: How many returning starters does Utah bring back from the 2021 Pac 12 Championship team?
Josh Newman: Utah has 17 starters returning from last season’s Pac-12 champion, and within that 17 are some key guys. Quarterback Cam Rising, running back Tavion Thomas, and two All-Pac-12 pass-catching tight end in Dalton Kincaid. All three starting cornerbacks — Clark Phillips III, JT Broughton (lost for the season Sept. 11 at BYU), and nickel Malone Mataele. This Utah team has a heavy veteran presence on both sides of the ball, and a lot of coaching continuity, especially at offensive coordinator (Andy Ludwig) and defensive coordinator (Morgan Scalley).
Our take
The Utes come into The Swamp with questions about how the guys from Salt Lake City will handle the heat and humidity of Gainesville. They don’t have many questions about their depth. Utah will be one of the most experienced, veteran, and well-coached teams the Gators face this year. It will be a monumental task to start the season. Not an insurmountable one, but Utah will certainly show the team where they are and how far they need to go.
