Utah quarterback Cam Rising was listed on the depth chart throughout the week ahead of Saturday’s matchup against USC. It was a smoke screen.
He will not play. He will miss his seventh-straight game during the 2023/24 season.
And that may not be all.
Rising might choose to extend his college football career. According to Pete Thamel, the Utes and their star quarterback are looking into the idea of a medical redshirt, which would allow him to return for a seventh year of eligibility.
Cam Rising tore his ACL in last year’s Rose Bowl.
It is likely that he will be on track to return this fall and there is still a long way to go in the current exploration phase. An additional season of eligibility may not come to fruition.
However, it could make a lot of sense.
Utah would be eliminated from College Football Playoff contention with a second loss. Oregon and Washington are still on the schedule.
Should Cam Rising try again next year?
Perhaps Rising would be better off getting fully healthy with the goal of a national championship next year. It would provide him with another full season to prove why he should be a top NFL Draft pick, instead of trying to squeeze all of his additional tape into four or five games at the end of this year.
Should that happen, if Rising returns for a seventh season in 2024, he will be 25 years old during Week 1 of the season. He graduated high school in 2018.
There have been some lengthy careers in the modern era of the sport, with the transfer portal and blanket waiver granted to all athletes as a result of the pandemic in 2020. A seven-year career is not that crazy these days.
With that being said, Rising’s return would be one of the most impactful and important careers to extent into 70% of a decade. His status within the sport is much greater than any seventh-year, 25-year-old player to come before him.