Around The Hill, 1/9/2022: Jayden de Laura, Kyle Whittingham, NDSU

In Football News...

• 4-star Utah signee QB Nate Johnson, played in the UnderArmour All-American Game.

• Lander Barton made quite the impression all week at the All-American Bowl.
• Coach Whitt and his wife were at the Broncos-Chiefs game yesterday.

• Joel Klatt of Fox Sports has the Utes at #8 in his current CFB 2022 top 10. I assume this is his hypothetical pre-season ranking and not a final ranking prediction.

• Jaylon Glover landed in SLC the other day and another new Ute, OL Tyler Knaak, welcomed him right.

• Jaylon Glover merch incoming...

• Alright, who’s handwriting do we think this is? I’m guessing it’s not Coach McDonald. Drop a comment with your guess as to which coach wrote this.

• Jamarrien Burt is a 3-star ATH out of Florida who the Utes offered earlier this week. The Utes are recruiting him as a safety which makes sense because this kid hits HARD ala Marquise Blair. The Utes came into his recruitment late but there is still time for him to come for an official visit.

In Basketball News...

• Branden Carlson has been diagnosed with appendicitis. Best of luck to him and hopefully a fast recovery.

• The Utes lost a bad one last night, but it wasn’t without a couple of bright spots. You can read our analysis here.

Around the Pac-12...

• Jayden de Laura officially announced that he has entered the portal. This is a massive blow to Washington State. The transfer portal doesn’t often work out well for players, but Jayden de Laura has shown enough on the field that I would think he has a better chance than most to find a solid landing spot. My own super-hot take is UCLA who just had a transfer QB commit flip to Oklahoma.

Around College Football...

• NDSU probably deserves an invite to a Group of 5 conference. This level of dominance is absurd.