Florida football’s first game of the 2023 season is four weeks away, and it’s still unclear whether the Gators will be playing an opponent with a healthy starting quarterback.
Utah is set to host the second half of a home-and-home series on Aug. 31, but the Utes could be without Cam Rising, who tore his ACL on Jan. 2 at the Rose Bowl.
Rising began fall training camp in an extremely limited capacity. He’s currently cleared to perform “basic football functions like throwing and dropping back,” according to KSL Sports.
“He’ll be practicing, but he’ll have limitations,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said. “That will pretty much be the report for at least a couple of weeks, practicing with limitations, and hopefully some of those start to get lifted as we get deep into camp, but today was a good start and we just have to be intelligent about it.”
The goal is obviously to get Rising ready for the start of the season, but the team isn’t going to risk another injury early. Of course, an upset loss to open the season could change those plans.
Behind Rising are redshirt freshmen Brandon Rose and Nate Johnson, as well as junior Bryson Barnes. Rose is the favorite to win the job.
Whittingham has bought himself roughly two weeks before reporters begin hounding him for another serious update. It’s going to be tough for Rising to be at 100% by the end of the month, and that’s a good thing for Florida.
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