Utah's 2023 freshmen class is already living up to the hype

Kyle Whittingham recently shared that Utah's early enrollees are performing exactly as they'd hoped.

Now more than a month into the offseason, the University of Utah Football program has begun their early preparation for the 2023 campaign. While big names like Cameron Rising, Brant Kuithe and Devaughn Vele recently announced their official return for this next season, Utah's 2023 early enrollees are already beginning to make an impact.

With a total of 19 commits making up Utah's highest rated recruiting class in program history, five of those players have already enrolled in the program and are participating in winter conditioning.

"We've been in our winter conditioning program for about three weeks and it's been awesome," Utah Head Coach Kyle Whittingham told Pac-12 Analyst Yogi Roth. "The influx of the new talent has been everything we had hoped it would be. Now we haven't got pads on them yet, but just watching them run around and in the weight room, we feel like we came away with a really good crew."

This news should come as no surprise as Utah's recruiting has recently reached new heights, and players like Spencer Fano (four-star OT), Mikey Matthews (four-star WR) and Mack Howard (three-star QB) have already begun their college career as early enrollees.

“You’re either in or in the way”

Coach Whittingham discusses @Utah_Football’s influx of new talent and how they will mesh with the returning guys.

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When paired with the rest of the 2023 class and the upperclassmen that will be returning this fall, the back-to-back Pac-12 Champions will have an opportunity to orchestrate the greatest season in program history. 

With non-conference matchups against Florida and Baylor, in addition to how difficult the Pac-12 is going to be, if Utah can emerge with just a single loss or maybe two, the Utes would be highly ranked and could finally sneak into the College Football Playoff.

"The way these guys are working, they're very focused. They have some definite goals that they want to accomplish this fall," Whittingham added.

While its still early and the majority of the 2023 class wont join until the summer, the Utes remain the team to beat in the Pac-12, especially with all those returning and several new faces.

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