I doesn't make sense to me that Rising would hold out. Reports on him have always been that he's a gamer / competitor and the overall team leader. It doesn't sound like it's in his nature to be a me-first kind of guy. Rising stayed to try and get to the playoffs with the team I think. He allegedly helped recruit over a number of skill player transfers (Pittman 2 years ago, Dorian Singer this year), so I can't imagine he's decided he's wanting to avoid playing so he could cash in on NILs and avoid football. He also could have entered the market after last season and gotten more NIL somewhere else. Utah supposedly has a pretty solid NIL set up, but I can't imagine it would compare to what some SEC / BIG 10 schools would have offered had they needed a one-and-done QB.

Also, Frank Dolce is a Utah grad and former QB, that's true, but he sometimes likes to stir the pot and play devil's advocate. In my opinion at least.

It's horrible luck that he got hurt on a freak accident. Take the fact that he was a "game time decision" a number of weeks last year mixed with inflated Ute fan expectations for this season tied to Whittingham's stance at never giving info on injuries unless they're year-ending, and you get a frustrated fanbase. I've seen threads on Ute sites where people are calling for a new coach to claims that Rising is just cashing in and not a team player - lots of overreaction.