Basketball season has officially come to a close with last night's Florida win over Ohio State in the national championship game. While there will be future reports on who Boylen brings on as his assistants and whether he can get Tyler Kepkay to recommit, I think we can all agree that football will take precedence until basketball season rolls around again in November.
Spring practices continue up on the Hill and the Utes are looking pretty solid. I'll admit I haven't been able to make it out to the practices, but from what I've read the team is coming together rather nicely. Of course there are some big questions that have yet to be answered and most of those surround Utah's defense, which lost a lot from last year's squad. The biggest of those questions is whether Utah can find a suitable replacement for All-American Eric Weddle. I'm not so sure we'll know that question until at least October, when the season is in full gear.
The defense has a lot of holes that need to be filled and as we get closer to the season, I'll take a look at where Utah stands in that regard. Right now, I think Utah has a suspect secondary and unproven linebackers -- not because of lack of experience, rather poor play. The Utes were burned a lot last season because of that poor play and if that is an issue again this season, things could get ugly. It doesn't help that Utah still needs to replace Weddle.
We'll see what happens over the next few months, but I am concerned about the defense and that could be the difference between a great season and another mediocre campaign. One positive however is that Kyle Whittingham is a defensive coach and I don't think he would allow this team to slip defensively. At least I hope not anyway.