SALT LAKE CITY — Cam Rising’s tenure at Utah is likely over.

On Monday, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham announced that Rising is out “indefinitely” due to a lower leg injury and that freshman quarterback Isaac Wilson, who started three games for Utah after Rising was injured earlier this season, will be the team’s starter. until further notice.”

“I can’t give you a timeline, it could be the rest of the season – I’m not exactly sure – but I know it will be a minute,” Whittingham said.

After suffering an injury to his throwing hand in the top of the second game of the season, Rising was unavailable for much of the season. But the seventh-year returned to the field on Friday as the team’s starter.

But a few plays into the game, an Arizona State defender rolled onto Rising’s right leg, causing the veteran QB to limp. Rising managed to play the entire game, but struggled to get the attack moving with inconsistent passing and hesitation in his decision-making.

Whittingham said after the match that it was “clear he’s not 100%”, but the coaching staff opted to leave Rising in the match – even when it was clear to everyone that Rising was hampered by injury and the attack of Utah struggled to work together. a consistent drive.

“No, he wanted to play and he felt very strongly that he wanted to stay in the game. He won a lot of ball games for us. But it’s a coaching decision to decide who gives you the best chance to win.” the game, and that’s who you put into it,” Whittingham said Friday night. “And, like I said, Cam has been great for us in the past.”

When asked on Monday if he felt the team should have made a change to Wilson at halftime, Whittingham again emphasized that Rising wanted to play.

“Cam is a warrior, I wanted to play,” Whittingham said. “We really moved the ball at the end of the first half and thought, ‘Okay,’ even though we didn’t get into the end zone. And then we moved the ball well on the first drive into the second half. … We had that thought – would that be a step we would take – but he wanted to finish it?

“He is a seasoned vet and he would have let us know if he felt he wasn’t being effective enough, so we didn’t make the move. And that’s the decision that our offensive coaches actually came to, our coordinator and quarterback coach. “

While Rising’s status for the remainder of the season remains up in the air, Whittingham has previously said the coaching staff could decide to stick with Wilson for the entire season. Even a brief recovery for Rising leaves doubts about a return.

As such, Rising may have the option to return to Utah for an eighth season under a new NCAA rule that restored eligibility to players who were forced to sit out a season before open transfers became mainstream.

But whether that remains a possibility – or whether Rising would be open to it at all – remains to be seen, although a return doesn’t seem likely.

“That’s a possibility, I think; I don’t know,” Whittingham said. “Again, we’d have to look into it in detail regarding compliance. And I’m not even sure Cam would be interested in going that route. He’s got a lot to think about, and so just do a step back, get him thoroughly diagnosed with this most recent injury and on the road to rehab, then that would be something we’ll be talking about sooner rather than later.

If Friday is the last time Rising plays again against Utah, he will leave the Utes having played in 30 games and just two full seasons. He finished with 6,127 passing yards and 53 touchdowns, but helped Utah to back-to-back Pac-12 championships.

Utah now turns its attention to Wilson as the starter for the Utes. The former Corner Canyon High star has improved every game he has played this season and will “continue to be the man,” according to Whittingham.

“There’s no guesswork,” he added. “He gets all the reps, which is about 75% of the reps during the work week, and Brandon Rose gets the remaining 25%.”

Rose remains the “solid No. 2,” according to Whittingham, and there are “no plans to split in-game replays or anything like that.”

“If anything happens to Isaac, you’ll see Brandon,” Whittingham added. “But unless things really go sideways, Isaac is our man and we have a lot of confidence in him.”