The University of Utah is now one week away from kicking off their highly anticipated 2024 football season against the SUU Thunderbirds. This means we’re seven days away from seeing the Bad Moon rise. It’s time to talk about the Utah legend, No. 7, quarterback Cam Rising.

The senior quarterback has played in 27 games and logged 25 starts. Rising was named to the Pac-12 All-Conference first-team in 2021, honorable mention in 2022, and MVP of the Pac-12 title game in 2022. He missed all of the 2023 season, after suffering a knee injury in the 2023 Rose Bowl.

With back-to-back conference titles over his last two seasons played, the captain of the captains is a Ute and Pac-12 legend already. Now, he has one last opportunity to stake his claim as the G.O.A.T. of all Utah G.O.A.T.s.

Rising is about to put the Big 12 on notice.

UteNation Take

To anyone who has watched Utah over the past few seasons, it is clear that Rising is the engine that makes the offense really click. In his absence during the 2023 season, the offense sputtered with Rising out of the lineup.

Now fully recovered from his knee injury, the program has pushed all their chips in, as their ultimate goal isn’t just the Big 12 championship, but a CFP appearance and more. They’ll be doing so with an offensive unit loaded with weapons, including, but not limited to: Brant Kuithe, Money Parks, Landen King, Micah Bernard, and big-time transfer additions Dorian Singer and Damien Alford.

The plan is to trust in Rising to just let it fly, a welcome change from the conservative Utah offenses from recent years.

Remembering Rising's Recruitment

A former four-star recruit, Rising was rated as the no. 8 best pro-style quarterback and no. 149 overall ranked recruit in the class of 2018. He held 25 offers from the likes of Alabama, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma (and was a one-time Sooners commit), Oregon, Penn State—basically, everyone wanted him.

Due to the Utes landing Jack Tuttle early on, they didn’t pursue Cam, initially. When Rising entered the transfer portal, the Longhorns did everything they could to keep him, as they firmly believed he has NFL talent. However, Rising was off visiting Salt Lake City and falling in love with the place, before Texas could convince him otherwise.