Postgame Quotes: No. 11 Utah vs. No. 4 USC

Postgame Notes
2022 Pac-12 Championship presented by 76
No. 11 Utah 47, No. 4 USC 24
Las Vegas, Nev. (Allegiant Stadium)
Fri., Dec. 2, 2022
Kick: 5:20 p.m. PT | End: 8:49 p.m.
Attendance: 61,195 (sellout)

Utah Head Coach Kyle Whittingham
Opening Statement
So proud of our guys. Our coaching staff, our players, outstanding effort. Players never stopped believing. I mean, they had a great attitude going into this game. They were not going to be denied.

Didn't look good early. We didn't play very well in the first quarter at all. In fact, if they would have kept that pace, it would have been 100 points and a thousand yards I think I calculated.

Good job by our defense stemming the tide, pulling another 180 just like they did in the (regular season USC) game, although this came in the second quarter rather than the second half.

We owned third down. I believe they were one of 12 on third down. We were much better in that. I think we were five or six of 12. That was a big key to the game.

Our rushing attack was big, being able to pile up the yards, get those physical rushes when we needed them. Cam Rising was outstanding, obviously, Player of the Game, MVP. Well deserved. He's our leader. As Cam goes, so goes the offense. He was on target tonight.

Very proud of the guys that stepped up for guys that weren't able to play. It was great to see those guys pick up the slack and perform very well.

Great job by our players repeating as Pac-12 champs. What more can you say? It's been a good last 12 months. Excited to go to the Rose Bowl again. Got to keep the good luck hair for another month now, so you have to deal with that (smiling). Can't cut it now.

But we're excited. We're excited. I'm proud. Like I said, so much hard work by our assistant coaches. Those guys just work tirelessly around the clock. Our players have a great work ethic and attitude. It's just a pleasure to be around this team and these coaches. Love the culture that
we have in our program.

You talk about college football coaches. We hear the same old names. I asked [the players] if it's time we started hearing Kyle Whittingham among the greats. They said absolutely. Can you talk about the legacy you laid here. With two traditional standbys bolting this conference soon, is Utah now the face of the Pac-12?
There's a few questions there. First of all, it's an anomaly to be at a school as long as I have. That just doesn't happen this day and age. I'm very grateful and blessed to have been at the University of Utah for as long as I have. It's close to 30 years as an assistant coach and head coach. Most coaches in that time frame would have been at 10 or 12 different places. Feel very fortunate.

Love the university. Love the community, love the state of Utah. It's a good fit for me and my family.

What was the question again? Oh, me?

As far as the success we've been able to have, I don't really care one bit about what conversation I'm in, I'm not in. That's not what's important. This job, you got to win to keep your job. But it's all about relationships, building those relationships with your players and coaching staff, even coaches from other teams. That's what it really is all about.

Again, if you don't win enough, you won't be around long enough to build relationships. I've been fortunate in that regard. I have no opinion on should I be in whatever conversation. That's where I'm at with that.

Every season is unique, highs and lows, injuries. How gratifying is this one having been to this point once already?
As gratifying as any season I can remember. We had our backs against the wall when we
got beat by Oregon a couple weeks back. These kids never blinked, never flinched. We kept believing. Once we got the news after the Oregon game that there was a pathway that we could get to this game, our guys just were ecstatic. We knew some things had to line up, one of which we had control of.

It's been a magical season in a lot of ways. Things just fell into place. To have this team, this is the goal way back in January, a bunch of our guys came back instead of opting to the NFL, is to run it back, as they called it. Wanted to do it again. Here they sit with a championship in their Hall of Fame out in front. It will be there tomorrow.

At what point in the game did you sense Caleb Williams was hurt and how did that change how you defended?
Yeah, we sensed -- I can't remember the exact point, but it was sometime early in the third quarter I believe. When you see a quarterback become not as mobile as he could be or should be, you smell blood in the water and you start bringing the heat. I mean, that's the strategy you want to use.

Caleb is a tremendous player. Maybe the most difficult quarterback to sack that we ever played against. We banged him up, slowed him down. I don't know how many sacks we ended up with, did we have half a dozen? Somewhere in that neighborhood?

He definitely took some punishment from our guys. We turned up the pressure.

You've won this twice in a row. Can you go back to 2019, what you think USC might be feeling right now. To come this close and then lose, not play well.
Yeah, it's disheartening. We've been there twice, '18 and '19. In '18, we were elated to be
there because we had never been to the championship game. Then in '19 we had that great team; had we won, we would have been in the CFP almost for certain.

We can emphasize and understand what they're going through. But this is a competitive profession. You can just worry about yourself; you can't feel sorry for anybody else. You just keep going about your business.

At Pac-12 Media Day you talked about last year feeling like you got over the hump, achieving something that hadn't been done. What does it say about this program to follow up a year like last year?
Well, I think it speaks to just that: our program. I think we've got a very good football program. That's what you want. You don't want to have a good team every now and then. You want to have a good program. I think that's the point we're at right now.

We have a program that's got some momentum now, a great deal of pride, a great deal of talent on the roster, excellent coaches. That's what you strive for, to be an outstanding program.
Thanks to the hard work of our assistant coaches and players, we're closing in on that.

Can you speak more to the play by the depth guys, Thomas [Yassmin] and Ja'Quinden [Jackson].
It says we have depth in the roster. That's what we've been trying to achieve ever since we got in the conference. When we first got here, our first 22 were good, but a big drop-off after that. We've been working tirelessly to improve the depth of the roster.

I think we're as deep and talented now as we ever have been. I know we are. I think that was manifest a lot of times this season. A lot of times we were without guys. Other years probably could not have overcome it, not continued to play at the high level we were able to this
year. That's because of the recruiting efforts of our coaches, their development of those players, the sheer talent of the roster 1 through 85.

Can you talk about the fans. The Utah fans again traveled out in droves. How did that help or impact this game?
It's awesome. We love our fans. I don't know, (12) straight years of sellouts in Rice-Eccles
back home.

They showed up without a doubt tonight. When we left the field at halftime, that's when it really hit me, how many fans we had there. The roar after we scored on that two-minute drill. We love our fans.

I know they're going to show up again at the Rose Bowl. I promise you that.

Your players get praised a lot for their physical toughness. What are your thoughts on their mental toughness considering the game and the way they battled back tonight?
Yeah, no question there, mentally and physically tough. That's a reputation we have in the Pac-12. That's the reputation we had in the Mountain West. That's who we are. A calling card of our program, is physicality. We preach it. We practice it that way. We're physical in practice.

I think mental and physical toughness go hand-in-hand oftentimes. We had some guys play this year in some circumstances that they were pretty banged up. They're so tough mentally, it starts with Cam Rising. I'm certain most quarterbacks would have missed a lot more time than he
missed when he had that injury.

Proud of our guys. That's something we take a great deal of pride in, is being mentally tough and physical.

Talking to Morgan afterwards, he was saying there were a couple of miscues, miscommunications early on the defensive side. Felt like if you just cleaned that up, there was no need to panic, you could be fine. Could you address that?
Yeah, we had a few blown coverages early in the game. Then later in the game we had a defensive back fall down, which created another big play. We never panicked. It was just a situation where I was more disappointed with the missed tackles. The tackling wasn't real sharp at the beginning of the game. We knew those few assignment errors that we made early could be corrected and were corrected.

Felt if we didn't start tackling well, nothing else was going to matter. That was really the biggest turnaround, was the way we tackled, then the way we turned up the heat on the quarterback with the pass-rush.

That really was the difference in the fourth quarter, was our fourth quarter pass-rush. That's how you put a game away, a strong running game and a fourth quarter pass-rush. We had both those tonight.

Since going 5-7 in 2012 and 2013 you've won nine games in seven of eight years. Can you take me back to those early days and what you did fundamentally to set the stage for what you've done since?
Yeah, first of all, when we first went into the Pac-12, we knew it was going to be a big challenge. We had things we had to accomplish facility-wise, budget-wise, recruiting-wise. There were a lot of challenges. That was like spanning the Grand Canyon, going from the Mountain West to the Pac-12. That was not an easy jump.

We had, like you said, early on, pretty good front 22. First 22 guys, we were a pretty good at the line of scrimmage. But I think it was the third and fourth year, either the second and third or third and fourth year in the Pac-12, somewhere in that neighborhood, where we had that dip. We were still in the process of getting everything up to speed. It was a process.

We appreciate the administration of the university being understanding and standing by us, not cleaning house. A lot of schools probably would have cleaned house after a couple of 5-7 years.

Grateful that we had the opportunity to continue to build and grow with the help of the administration and facilities, all the things that you need to compete at the Power Five level falling into place. We think we're in a good spot right now.

Utah Student-Athletes – Running Back Ja'Quinden Jackson and Quarterback Cameron Rising
When you got hit and your helmet popped off. What did that hit do for the rest of the offense? Was it even something that affected you?
CAMERON RISING: Nope.

JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: It affected me.

CAMERON RISING: J.J. wanted it more than me out there. And the next play he showed it.

JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: I was pissed. Because I felt like it was my fault. I should have looked in, tried to block him as least. Yeah, I was pissed about that.

CAMERON RISING: It is what it is, Scooby snacks.

Cam, J.J., how good does this one feel?
JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: Man, unbelievable. I don't even know how to describe it, man. Like I've been saying it all year, we're doing this for '22. I even got it on my wrist. Year 2022, doing it for '22, so it was definitely our year.

CAMERON RISING: It was destined. That's what it felt like.

Can you talk about the momentum shift. You guys were down in the first quarter, but yet you turned it around. What was the key?
CAMERON RISING: Unwavering belief. We have a game plan. We have players that are great players, that get the job done. We just can't stop believing in that. That's what we did. That's why the game ended the way it ended.

Ja'Quinden, what has the experience been like for you to switch to running back, then run for 105 yards and two touchdowns in the Pac-12 championship?
JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: It's a blessing, man. It was real natural because all through middle school, a little bit in high school, I played running back. It was natural ability to me.

But like I said, it's a blessing doing it. I'm glad I made it happen. I did it for the team. They needed it, so I just made it happen.

CAMERON RISING: You can cut the tape off of him in high school back in Duncanville, him getting loose. You get an idea of it (smiling).

Cameron, can you describe what it's like in a game like tonight where all of a sudden one guy after another is busting through tackles at different points in the game, where maybe the sense that you get of how you are asserting yourself physically?
CAMERON RISING: Yeah, we talked about imposing our will tonight. That's really what we wanted to go out and do. Yeah, throwing those guys the ball there, they're going to break the tackle, along with J.J. and Micah [Bernard] taking the load right there, running it. Did a great job breaking tackles, taking advantage of those missed opportunities that they had.

When a season starts and you talk about college football, you talk about coaches, the greats, rarely do we hear Kyle Whittingham's name be brought up. Is it time that we start hearing he's one of the best if not the best coach in college football?
JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: Yes! Yes! Most definitely. I don't know why it's not. Like, back to back Pac-12 championships? C'mon now. He been here too long for people not to be talking about him. One of the best coaches that I've ever been around. Like, it's time.

CAMERON RISING: Yeah, he's one of the most winning coaches in the Pac-12. The most winning coach at Utah. He's been doing something right. He's been tenured there for so long that you're going to be doing something right if you're there for that long.

He's just a great coach. Going back to back, I think he's moving up on that list for sure.

Defending Pac-12 champions, yet you come into this game cast as the underdog. Can you talk about being in that role and the emotion you fed off of.
JA'QUINDEN JACKSON: We already knew what we had to do. It was just a regular game to us. Like, we knew we had to play physical. We knew that we had to stick together as one. It was just [a] regular game to us.

Upcoming Events

Recent Results

Players Mentioned

Ja'Quinden Jackson

Cameron Rising

Upcoming Event: Football at Wyoming on September 13, 2025 at 6 p.m.

Upcoming Event: Football versus No. 21 Texas Tech on September 20, 2025 at 10 a.m.

Upcoming Event: Football at West Virginia on September 27, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football versus Arizona State on October 11, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football at BYU on October 18, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football versus Colorado on October 25, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football versus Cincinnati on November 1, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football at Baylor on November 15, 2025

Upcoming Event: Football versus Kansas State on November 22, 2025

Completed Event: Football versus Cal Poly on September 6, 2025 , Win , 63, to, 9

Completed Event: Football at UCLA on August 30, 2025 , Win , 43, to, 10

Completed Event: Football at UCF on November 29, 2024 , Win , 28, to, 14

Completed Event: Football versus #22 Iowa State on November 23, 2024 , Loss , 28, to, 31

Completed Event: Football at #17 Colorado on November 16, 2024 , Loss , 24, to, 49

Completed Event: Football versus #9 BYU on November 9, 2024 , Loss , 21, to, 22

Completed Event: Football at Houston on October 26, 2024 , Loss , 14, to, 17

Completed Event: Football versus TCU on October 19, 2024 , Loss , 7, to, 13

Completed Event: Football at Arizona State on October 11, 2024 , Loss , 19, to, 27