As Utah turns page to Isaac Wilson era, can Utes’ red-zone offense get back on track?

When looking at the Utes’ offensive production this season, there’s one glaring issue that stands out.
It’s a problem that has plagued Utah all season — inefficiency in the red zone. Utah is in the bottom third in the nation in red-zone success rate (80.8%) and is only scoring touchdowns inside the 20-yard line at 46.2% clip, which ranks No. 122 in the country.
Head coach Kyle Whittingham and offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig know that the red zone is their biggest area of weakness this season, and they ramped up the focus on it in practice during the two weeks leading up to the Arizona State game, tripling the amount of time they usually spend on it.
“Well, we know exactly what needs to happen. We got to be better schematically, put our kids in a better position to succeed,” Whittingham said during the bye week. “We got to tweak some things in practice, the way we’re going about it. We’ve got it all mapped out.”
Despite the focus on the red zone during the bye week, the results weren’t much better. Inside the ASU 20-yard line, Utah was 3 of 4 (an interception, two field goals and a touchdown). When you extend that out to the 30-yard line, it’s even worse — Utah scored just one touchdown on seven trips. (One would-be red-zone touchdown by Mycah Pittman that would have put Utah up with 5:48 left on the clock was called back due to pass interference by Money Parks.)
Whether it was running back Micah Bernard, who ran for 129 yards, or a limited Rising, who passed for 209 yards on 43% accuracy, Utah did well enough to at least get into scoring position.
They just couldn’t convert.
“We had one punt in the game, and when you have one punt you should score some points, but we got in the end zone one time and so that doesn’t equate. That tells you that we’re moving the football and that we’re finding ways to bog down,” Whittingham said, adding that if the red-zone woes continue, the Utes may not win another game the rest of the way.
There were some puzzling red-zone play calls in the previous game against Arizona, like two straight runs up the middle on third and fourth down with a less-than-healthy Mike Mitchell. Everyone in the stadium knew that when Mitchell comes on, it usually means a run up the gut, and Arizona knew, too, shutting both plays down.
Another play call Utah probably wished it had back was on fourth-and-goal on the Arizona 2-yard line. Tight end Caleb Lohner was the only option out wide for Isaac Wilson, and while the extra receivers blocking helped protect the freshman quarterback, only having one pass-catching option is tough when that option is tightly covered, as was the case on that play. The Wildcats broke the pass up for a turnover on downs.
Again on Friday, there were a few play calls that were confusing, like a direct snap to tight end Brant Kuithe on second-and-12 that went nowhere, and too many passes from Rising, who was clearly struggling to throw the ball.
There’s no doubt that a portion of the red-zone blame lies on Ludwig and his play-calling. There’s certainly been times where he hasn’t put his players in the best position to succeed and he’s been too predictable at times.
But some of this still stems from execution — or lack of it — by players. If players execute at a high level, then the offensive coordinator looks like a genius, but if they struggle, even a well-designed play can end in a failure for the offense.
There have been times Wilson’s inexperience in the red zone has shown, and on Saturday, a less-than-healthy Rising threw a pick inside the 20-yard line and couldn’t complete open throws at other times.
“In the passing game,” Ludwig said Monday night when asked where the disconnect has been in the red zone. “Completing passes and executing the details of the assignments in the red zone, and that’s particularly in the passing game.”
Utah continues to put heavy emphasis on improving its red-zone offense, from looking at play calls to practicing red-zone situations. Will that finally pay off against TCU?
“That’s been an emphasis for us since the Arizona game and the bye week,” Ludwig said. “Obviously it didn’t come to fruition the other night, but we’ll continue to work on it. And I know there’s improvement coming.”
While the offense outside the red zone has certainly been better, there’s still been a few more curious things. The vaunted tight end room Ludwig spoke about in fall camp has pretty much only consisted of Kuithe. Lohner has had a few well-designed plays, and has three touchdowns to show for it, but other than that, it’s been crickets from the rest of the group.
Dallen Bentley has only been targeted four times this season, Carsen Ryan three times and Landen King once. Ditto for the wide receivers — Dorian Singer and Money Parks have had plenty of receptions, but what about the rest of the room? Can Utah get more players involved in the offense moving forward?
There’s issues to fix on offense, no doubt, but there is a glimmer of hope for the rest of the year.
It starts with the fact that there’s finally clarity at quarterback. Unfortunately for the Utes, Rising — who makes Ludwig’s offense shine when healthy — is out for the season with a leg injury.
Following the news, the team held a players-only meeting, and one player that stepped up and took charge was Wilson.
It’s Wilson’s team the rest of the way, and the players are ready to rally behind him.
“Those guys in the team meeting we had, we were behind Isaac and he came up here, he said a few words and he got us motivated, so we better go out there this week and just put it on tape,” Bernard said.
The weekly drama about Rising’s status for each game didn’t just affect Utah’s fanbase, but seemed to have an impact on the team as well, and there seems to be some sense of relief that there’s certainty at the position. At times this season, the Utes were building two different game plans, one for Rising and one for Wilson.
“I think it’ll help a lot just because we have different plays going in for different guys, depending on who’s going to go in. But now we ain’t got to worry about that. We know the game plan fully and what we’re going to execute in that situation,” Bernard said. “So I think it’ll help us a lot just building around the guy we got at our quarterback rather than building two different game plans.”
For Wilson specifically, knowing that it’s his ball for the rest of the season — no more splitting practice reps or wondering if Rising was going to start that weekend — is going to be huge.
“I think it’s best for him honestly because in those weeks that we didn’t know who was going to be starting, Isaac was kind of taking a good amount of the reps and he didn’t know if he was going to start,” Kuithe said.
“I think for him, knowing that he’s going into that each week, game mode, knowing he’s going to start and preparing the right way, I think it’ll help him a lot and just know that we know who’s going to be starting and it’s going to be great.”
The game-planning by Ludwig can now be completely tailored to Wilson’s strengths and weaknesses, and one visible way that may happen is by running more plays under center instead of out of the shotgun, which Utah was utilizing more because of Rising’s injured hand.
“Some of the plays we usually are under center, we were not under center, so we’ll go back to that and a little bit more of true Utah football, what we wanted to do, what Cam wanted to do, but he was unable to physically,” Ludwig said.
You could very well see an improvement from Wilson’s last three games on Saturday simply based on the fact that he will have a complete game plan fit for him and the entire team can key in on just one game plan instead of two. Having all of the practice reps and complete assurance that he will be the starter against TCU could go a long way as well.
As Whittingham said Monday, however, “there’s not some … magic fairy that’s going to wave a wand and all is going to be right.”
All the things we mentioned above will help Wilson, but he is still a true freshman. He’s still going to make mistakes. Priority No. 1 for him is cutting down those errors — especially interceptions.
Wilson’s 1.4 picks per game (seven total) are the eighth-most in FBS, and that’s something the true freshman needs to correct to get to the next level of his college career. His 55.7% completion rate, near the bottom of college football, needs to see an uptick as well. Do those things, plus execute better in the red zone, and things will be looking up.
Another key is going to be for Ludwig to help Wilson out when he’s pressured. Opposing teams have blitzed him at a 43.5% rate, and until he makes defenses pay, every team is going to continue to send pressure.
As an offensive coordinator, what can Ludwig do to make his quarterback’s life a little easier in those situations?
“You got to be committed to running the football first and foremost, and then a little bit more extra protection for him, whether it’s an extra tight end staying in protection,” Ludwig said. “Play-action pass is a great equalizer for that and we’ll lean on all those components here moving forward. The screen game needs to be a big part of that as well.”
A season that started with high expectations effectively ended with a thud in Tempe last Friday. Barring a miraculous 6-0 finish and getting some other results to go their way, the Utes won’t accomplish their goal of winning the Big 12 championship this year.
Instead, Utah turns the page to the future with Wilson.
The experience that Utah’s potential 2025 starter gets in these next six games will be extremely valuable for his development and pay dividends for next season.