Utah Football: 5 takeaways from successful 2018 season

The 2018 Utah football season is officially in the books and the Utes won their first division title since joining the Pac-12. What’d we learn?

Kyle Whittingham nearly finished with his fifth 10-win season as Utah’s head coach and his first Pac-12 title since joining the conference, but winning the South and finishing 9-5 isn’t so bad for a team that no one predicted to be in the championship game at the beginning of the year.

We saw a team surpass expectations but injuries derailed what could have been a special season. Both Tyler Huntley and Zack Moss missed the latter part of the season and that led to a demoralizing snoozer in the Pac-12 title game against Washington, losing 10-3.

Still, Utah made steps in the right direction. Whittingham’s team will return plenty of talent in 2019 but there are still things to learn from.

What’d we learn from the Utes’ 2018 season?

5. Jason Shelley shows promise, but needs more time

As a redshirt freshman with Tyler Huntley back for his junior year, Jason Shelley probably didn’t expect to even sniff the field in 2018.

The second-year player was forced into action due to an injury to Huntley and he appeared in nine games, passing for 1,162 yards and five touchdowns but he did have six interceptions. He completed 58 percent of his passes and rushed for 192 more yards and three scores. Though he had more turnovers than touchdown passes, he showed promise.

Luckily, Huntley will be back for his senior year and the Utes will have another year to mold Shelley into the quarterback they need to be.

Shelley got his first taste of action and showed that he can be a dynamic threat at the FBS level, but he could use another year of grooming and learning under Huntley.