medically wise and there's been a lot of back and forth from Whittingham on whether he's cleared to go or is he not. IDK maybe that's just Whittingham trying to fool the teams on the Utes schedule and trying to convince them to plan for Rising even though he's not really ready medically wise. Maybe Whittingham is convinced that he can't get any more mileage out of "Cam's ready to play".

“He was cleared for last week as far as just, yeah, you can use him, but just up to you guys what decision you make. So I think we’re past that point where you have to worry about reinjury or anything like that. Hopefully. Knock on wood,” Whittingham said on Sept. 23.

During his bye week media availability, however, Whittingham said that Rising “wants to play worse than anybody” and “as soon as he gets the go-ahead,” he will play.

On Monday, Whittingham was asked who is giving that go-ahead — the medical staff or the coaching staff? In previous weeks, it was seemingly the coaches’ decision not to play Rising due to the lack of velocity on his throws and feeling like a healthy Wilson gave Utah a better chance to win than a less-than-healthy Rising.

But it seems like we’re back to square one, as Whittingham said during his weekly press conference Monday that the “go-ahead” for Rising to return to play will come from the medical staff.

“Medical staff, without any other input. I mean, we’re following the recommendations, he is following the recommendations as well as from the doctors,” Whittingham said.

“We’ll see what happens this week, but there’s a chance (Rising plays), I can tell you that, and it’s still early in the week, but we’re crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, as is Cam,” Whittingham explained. “And so we’re just seeing how things play out, but again, we follow all the medical recommendations. We’re not going to, I’m not a doctor, Cam’s not a doctor, we’re not going to go against that. So that’s where we’re at.”

That’s a departure from Whittingham’s previous comments that Rising was cleared."