Utah QB Brandon Rose suffers season-ending injury

Utah quarterback Brandon Rose has suffered a season-ending lower leg injury, coach Kyle Whittingham announced on Tuesday night.
Isaac Wilson, who started five games for the Utes before being benched in the third quarter of Utah’s loss to Houston, will start for the team against Colorado. Luke Bottari, the only other quarterback left on the roster without a season-ending injury, will be Wilson’s backup.
Rose made his first start as a Ute in the team’s 22-21 loss to BYU on Saturday, sparking the offense in the first half. The sophomore quarterback completed 12 of 21 passes for 112 yards and two touchdowns. He threw one interception, which Whittingham said wasn’t his fault and was due to a receiver running the wrong route.
Rose’s running ability also shined, as he ran for 55 yards, including a 27-yard designed run that woke up the offense, which took a 21-10 lead into the locker room at halftime. Utah’s offense failed to score a point in the second half, however, partly due to execution and partly due to what could be considered conservative play-calling in the fourth quarter.
“I thought he provided a spark and actually played pretty darn good,” Whittingham said on Monday. “… I thought that Brandon, for his first collegiate start and first opportunity, did a really nice job.”
Rose, who will require surgery, is the latest Ute to be lost for the season due to injury, joining tight end Brant Kuithe, quarterback Cam Rising, quarterback Sam Huard, receiver Money Parks, cornerback Kenan Johnson and offensive guard Michael Mokofisi.
On his ESPN 700 coaches show, Whittingham said Rose will be out for six to eight months.
After a laundry list of injured players last season, Utah emerged healthy from fall camp this year after the team implemented changes to fall camp aimed at minimizing injuries. Utah ramped up slowly, practicing for two days and taking a day off, practicing for three days and taking a day off, etc. The program also implemented modifications in lifting to prevent soft-tissue injuries and looked at the warmup and stretch routines the Utes are doing.
“We’ve looked at every possible angle we have,” Whittingham said this fall.
It seemed to work as Utah arrived to the season-opener healthy, with the exception of linebacker Levani Damuni, who was injured in spring camp.
“It did. We did the study and the results, put them on paper, and we were about 70% less injuries this camp than last camp, so we did something right this camp,” Whittingham said this fall. “There’s a combination of things. I don’t think it’s any one thing, but the approach we took definitely lent itself to less injuries.”
As the year progressed, though, the injuries started piling up.
“Well, it worked on the soft tissue injuries, which was all you can really control, the soft tissue, and so we actually fared very well in that regard as far as eliminating those,” Whittingham said on Tuesday. “But the kind of injuries we’re getting now, there’s nothing you can do in your training regimen to prevent that.”
Asked if it was a “turf thing,” Whittingham replied, “I couldn’t tell you. I mean that’d just be speculation. I don’t know.”