As Pac-12 Conference foe Stanford plays its season opener against Rice on Saturday night in Sydney, Australia, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham will not be watching and asking, “Why couldn’t that be us?”
Whittingham said on Thursday that the Utes were approached by event organizers several years ago to take part in a game in Australia, but the Utes declined.
“We were invited to that, and we didn’t think that made a lot of sense for us,” Whittingham said. “You know, it’s got to be good for recruiting or really good for your players. We weighed that out and mulled it over for a long time, and decided that for us it wasn’t what we wanted to do.”
By taking part in the Sydney game, Stanford starts its regular season a week earlier than most teams in the conference. Its schedule includes a bye next weekend as well as another bye in October.
“There’s a lot to that game,” Whittingham said. “There’s travel. There’s logistics. It was something that I didn’t feel was in the best interests of our players.”
Standford’s game against Rice will mark the second consecutive year a Pac-12 team has opened its season in Sydney. California beat Hawaii last season.
In 2016, the Pac-12 announced a multi-year agreement with Fox Sports to televise 13 football games and 21 basketball games in Australia annually, as well as airing all episodes of “The Drive” for football and men’s basketball. The television deal served as part of the conference’s initiative, Pac-12 Global.
The Utes have recruited Australian players in recent years under Whittingham. This season, Utah’s All-American punter and Ray Guy Award winner Mitch Wishnowsky is one of eight players (all either punters or kickers) from Australia on Pac-12 football rosters. Wishnowsky, a junior, was named an Associated Press Preseason All-American earlier this week.
Prior to Wishnowsky, the Utes had a successful stretch with Australian punter Tom Hackett. A former punter from Melbourne, Australia, Hackett won two Ray Guy Awards and is the only two-time consensus All-American in school history.