Kyle Whittingham Felt A New Voice Was Needed In Utah’s WR Room

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham made a change on his coaching staff during the off-season that impacted the wide receivers.

Kyle Whittingham and Utah football announced on March 1 that Guy Holliday was no longer with the program as the wide receivers coach. Kyle Whittingham felt like a new face and new voice was needed in the Utah WR room.

“Well, we just felt that, to take the position group to the next level and be able to have them continue to progress and development,” Whittingham said. “It’s nothing against coach (Guy) Holliday, love coach Holliday, he’s a close friend. But we just felt like maybe a new face, a new voice in that room would be something that would be positive. We do need to add to that group, we did lose a couple guys in the portal. We’re planning on adding guys to the position group, and that will be most likely not until summertime, or at least close to that point, won’t be in the immediate future. So we’re going to continue to look and find the right fits and that’s the direction we’re going.”

Kyle Whittingham said that they will need to add to the wide receiver group but it will happen during the summer time.#GoUtes pic.twitter.com/ZSq3ZoRxu1

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) March 15, 2021

Utah Hires Chad Bumphis

One week later, Whittingham hired Chad Bumphis as the new wide receivers coach. Bumphis was a graduate assistant on offense in 2018, working with the wide receivers before taking a full time job as the WR coach for Austin Peay. Whittingham felt like Bumphis was a great fit for that position group.

“Well, Chad was with us back in 2018 as a graduate assistant, did a phenomenal job, seemed to fit really well with our staff and what we were doing,” Whittingham mentioned. He’s since been a full time coach in a couple different places and has done a nice job in those capacities. Just seemed like a guy that already knew our system, he already knew what we’re all about, how we run things, how we operate. It seemed to be really a good fit. He is very popular with the players when he was here. In fact, we have four or five players on the roster that were here during that year back in 2018 and they all were very positive in their viewpoint and opinion of Chad and it just seemed like a good fit all the way around. So that’s the direction we went.”

Kyle Whittingham Moving Defensive Backs To Wide Receivers

The wide receiver group took the biggest hit this offseason as Bryan Thompson (Arizona State) and Samson Nacua (BYU) entered the portal in 2021. Utah signed just one wideout in the 2021 recruiting class in Makai Cope. They haven’t been able to bring in any receivers in the portal but that will be something the coaching staff does in the summer.

For spring football purposes and potentially beyond that, Whittingham moved two defensive players over to wide receiver in cornerback Caine Savage and safety Ben Renfro. Whittingham wasn’t sure if this would be a permanent move for the offense or just until they get more depth at the position.

Whittingham moved two DB's over to WR for spring ball (Caine Savage and Ben Renfro). They made the moves after the two guys left in the portal.#GoUtes

— Trevor Allen (@TrevorASports) March 15, 2021

“Obviously, we need bodies at wide receiver, that’s the one hit the most recently with losing guys and not only to the transfer portal, but guys that are unavailable due to injury. So, Caine (Savage) was an outstanding receiver in high school, was very productive. He and Ben Renfro, moving two players from the defense over to the wide receiver position with Ben and Caine. Whether it’s long term will be determined in spring ball. See how those guys adapt. Ben was also a full time receiver in high school as well. So those two guys have a lot of experience and are there due to the numbers as well as get an opportunity to see what they can do on that side of the ball. If it looks like their highest ceiling is going to be moving back to defense after spring ball, make that move there looks like they’re they’re settled in to be productive at wide receiver. That’s to be determined. We definitely would not have made those moves have we not had some thinning out at that position.”

Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports. You can download and listen to the podcast, here.

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