Florida Football: Is Utah going to have to start Bryson Barnes?

As Florida football prepares to take on Utah in two weeks in Salt Lake City, one of two narratives is taking hold for the Utes. Either Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham has an amazing poker face, or his team is about to start the season with their third-string quarterback.

If the latter is the reality come August 31, who exactly is the third-string QB for Utah?

Florida Football: Dropping like flys

We highlighted earlier this week that Utah might be running out of quarterbacks. Desired starter Cam Rising is still recovering from a torn ACL he suffered in the Rose Bowl back in January, and he has yet to be cleared by Utah.

When asked about it, Whittingham said, “No change. No change on Cam.”

No worries then; Utah had Brandon Rose as the backup, and people liked what they saw from him during the Spring Game for Utah.

Except Utah doesn’t put a no-contact jersey on their QBs during scrimmages, and after taking a big hit last week, Rose had to go to the hospital.

So when asked who would be the starting QB against Florida, Whittingham said:

"“Right now, if we had to play today, it would be Bryson Barnes”"

So who exactly is Bryson Barnes?

He is a former unrated prospect that walked on and is currently a junior. Listed at 6’1″ and 209 pounds, Barnes has seen action in 13 games, including 10 last year, and has thrown 59 passes with a completion rate of 66%.

We started last season against Washington State and saw extended action against Penn State in the Rose Bowl after Rising tore his ACL.

Barnes has an accurate enough arm, but virtually every throw he was asked to make was inside ten yards. He doesn’t have a particularly strong arm and tends to float a lot of his passes.

In the Rose Bowl, when he did try to push the ball down the field, it didn’t go well.

The mind games will continue between Florida and Utah over the next couple of weeks, but as it stands right now, we are saying something we didn’t think we would be saying a month ago; Florida has the edge at quarterback.