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(Salt Lake City) – In the preseason last August, Kendal Thompson (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma) found himself in a three way tie for the starting QB position at the University of Oklahoma. His play making ability with his feet made him a viable option for Oklahoma as they looked to replace four year starter Landry Jones. But just as he was starting to separate himself from the other young quarterbacks an untimely injury took him out of the race for the starting position.
Fast forward a year later, having graduated early from Oklahoma with his Bachelor’s degree in May and transferring to the University of Utah, Thompson found himself in another competition against the previous Utah starting quarterback Travis Wilson whom he would ultimately come up short to. But unlike at Oklahoma, where most positions are three deep, the coaches at Utah know that at any given moment Thompson could be the starter and given his natural running abilities it also brought another dimension to the offense that one could argue that hadn’t had since Alex Smith was the quarterback.
In the first two non-conference games of the season Kendal Thompson has performed as a starter when coming into the games and running the offense effectively. Even though these games had already been decided early on in the half, his execution of the offensive as a backup as earned him praise from head coach Phil Whittingham.
“I want to give (Thompson) some praise,” Whittingham said. “He came in and ran the offense. Now it’s a different element, a different dimension when he’s in there. The Q-run game becomes very, very viable for us and very difficult to stop for the opponent. He played very well. He took advantage of the opportunity.”
Even though Kendal has played less than 3 quarters of football cumulative for the Utes he has still managed to complete 156 yards in the passing area in only 17 tries but he has gained 78 yards total so far on the ground which is currently the third best rushing for Utah so far this season.
The Utes will get a bye weekend this week to clean up some items on offense and defense before they take on the toughest match-up of the season against the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor on September 20th.
