What Utah's Kyle Whittingham said ahead of Week 3

Here's what Whittingham had to say about the Utes' upcoming opponent, his favorite memories playing and coaching in Laramie, Wyoming, and much more during his weekly press conference.

On facing the Cowboys on the road

"It's always a hostile crowd. My memory as a player and coaching there is, they'll get after you pretty good, the crowd will, and so it's an environment you got to be able to handle. The elevation for us shouldn't be a big deal; it's a couple 1,000 feet higher, but we're used to elevation, so I don't expect that to be an issue. We just got to go up there and play our game, play well and take care of the football."

"The key will be in the preparation. Monday through Friday is when the games are won or lost, and so we got to have a great week of practice, which we have had the first two weeks of the season, and that's just kind of how the season goes. You just show up, care and repeat. That's how it works."

On whether Utah's backup QB situation has changed

"Not necessarily; as we talked last week, Isaac Wilson does have a redshirt year. That, combined with wanting to find out more about Byrd [Ficklin] in live situations has led to what you've seen the last couple weeks. But no, if it was a long term situation, then I'm not saying that has necessarily changed."

"But Byrd did do a great job. I thought he really handled the offense well; played a full quarter and a half, 4-for-4 throwing the ball, had a really nice run on the touchdown run and really looked poised and did some good things. So he is still a work in progress, but I wouldn't say the depth has necessarily changed right now."

On his best memories playing and coaching in Laramie, Wyoming

"Well one I remember, it was my senior year, when I was a player — or junior year — went up there and got beat in a snowstorm. That was a miserable experience. It was freezing cold, and we lost that game, which we didn't lose a lot of games, but that was one of them."

"Then coaching wise — I don't know what year it was, but we had those heat torpedo heaters or whatever they are, on the sideline. My dad (Fred Whittingham) was coaching with us at the time and got too close to it and his pants started on fire. We had to douse him with water to get the pants out, and so that was a fairly light, humorous moment there."

On Utah's passing attack

"I think it's something that needs to continue to improve. I think it's off to a pretty good start, but not real explosive, I guess is the proper word; we haven't had a lot of explosive plays in the throw game."

"We've got to continue to push the ball up the field more often. I think [Jackson] Bennee needs to become a little more involved in that, and that's why he's playing over there a portion of the time, to help us stretch the field vertically."

On areas of the secondary that need improving

"Too many turning guys loose up the field, and that's due to poor eyes. Typically you get young defenders, and I consider Jackson Bennee a young defender, because he hasn't played much game time experience in the defensive secondary, and his eyes got bad on occasion. That's really the key."

"The key is disciplined eyes, and particularly in man coverage, because we're a heavy man coverage team, and as soon as you start getting nosy and looking in the backfield, you're going to lose your guy and get separation and that was the case on just about every route that we turned loose, is because of bad eyes."

On hosting recruits for visits, changes to recruiting calendar

"It's a lot less visits [during the season]. In fact, we have zero [official] visits scheduled at this point in time. I'm sure we'll come up with a few during the in season, but as of now, we have nothing scheduled; and we had, shoot, 50-60 visits in the summertime. It has done a complete transition. And everybody, not everybody, but 98% of the guys are going on the summer visits and making their decision early. There's still a few stragglers who changed their mind late or still haven't made that decision, but it has really changed the timing of recruiting."

"The official visits are the same, it's just a different time of the year, and I like it better now because it gets really hectic when you're trying to prepare for a game and all that and still entertain and have official visits, because that's time consuming as well."

"We have tons of unofficial yeah guys coming to the games each week, but as far as having the official 48-hour visit, there's nobody scheduled."