What about Jason Shelley?
- By my count, the Utes have had 16 (does not include Jackson Cravens) scholarship players leave the program who did not exhaust their eligibility and were on the 2018 roster. It has been debated in other threads whether those players were or were not expected to contribute. Whether they were or not, it leaves the Utes with roughly 74 scholarship players going into the 2019 season. I think they still have a couple of initials so that could increase by 2 or 3 between now and when camp opens. The Utes have 19 scholarship seniors, so it is going to take several years to increase the overall number of scholarships. Schools that get themselves into numbers problems typically do not do well. The lack of numbers this year might not hurt, but it will at some point.
As I look at the current roster, I see the following:
QB. Huntley's injury history suggests that he won't play the entire season. With Rising ineligible (has there been a decision?), we are 1 play away from Drew Lisk. I am not sure he is a D-1 player.
RB. No concerns. Still wish we had Shyne.
WR. I have concerns and we only have 10 scholarship players.
TE. No concerns.
OL. Plenty of concerns, numbers are fine, but there were a couple of classes that would be juniors and seniors right now that were not evaluated very well.
DT. I count 6. No concerns this year, but numbers going forward are a concern.
DE. 6, 3 with strong resumes but very young beyond those 3.
LB. Similar to DE.
S. Who is the safety opposite Blackmon? The other guys I have seen there are Burgess and Hubert. Our safeties are called on to make too many tackles to make it through a season without injury.
CB. We look good this year and there are a lot of young guys on the roster.
I think the Utes have the opportunity to be very good this year. Development of OL will be key. A factor frequently overlooked about the Sugar Bowl team is that the Utes started the same 11 on offense every game. Not sure about defense, but I cannot remember them losing anyone for the season. I don't think playing a PAC 12 schedule will allow the Utes to avoid injury, so is there enough depth at WR, OL, DE, LB and S to win a championship?