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After six years in Utah, Cam Rising's time with the Utes appears to finally be coming to an end. Rising, who just completed his seventh year of college football, is reportedly not planning on returning to Utah and will either enter the 2025 NFL draft or look to apply for an additional year of NCAA eligibility and enter the transfer portal.
If the latter is his plan, Rising will seek another medical waiver for appearing in just three games in 2024. He previously sat out the entire 2023 season with a knee injury. However, the two years before that, he brought a pair of Pac-12 championships to Utah. Should he be granted an eighth season by the NCAA, Rising's career will continue with his third destination.
By the start of the 2025 season, Rising will be 26 years old. In terms of experience, no college quarterback will have as much high-level field time as he will. Fans may not like it, but if Rising returns to college football for another year, his next team will likely be considered immediate title contenders.
Why Cam Rising should transfer to Miami
It has been over half a decade, but Miami was one of the several teams that gave Rising an offer back in 2018. However, that was during the Mark Richt era and not Mario Christobal's current tenure. Either way, the fit would seemingly still work on paper.
While Miami is doing perfectly fine at quarterback in 2024 with Cam Ward, they will have to begin the process all over again in the offseason. As a borderline Heisman candidate, Ward is set to be a prioritized prospect in the upcoming 2025 NFL Draft. Once the Hurricanes complete the Pop Tarts Bowl on Dec. 28, Cristobal will need to search for his next quarterback.
Coaches like Cristobal tend to shy away from back-to-back transfer quarterbacks with just one year of eligibility, but Rising's play style mimics that of Ward's so well that he would not have to change much. Rising is still one of the top quarterbacks in the transfer portal and would keep Miami in the title discussion.
Why Cam Rising should transfer to Michigan
Michigan is another team that gave Rising an offer in 2018 before he committed to Texas. Like Miami, they were also under a different era with Jim Harbaugh than the one they are currently in with Sherrone Moore. Yet, one of Moore's biggest regrets was not hitting the portal hard enough ahead of 2024, something he is not likely to do again in his second offseason as a head coach.
On the heels of a national championship victory in January, Michigan had one of the worst quarterback plays of any Power Five team in the country. Neither one of Davis Warren, Alex Orji, or Jack Tuttle was the answer. The job eventually ended up with Warren, but the results were consistently poor. Even with Warren and Orji able to return in 2025, neither of them will begin the year as the starting quarterback.
Michigan has five-star recruit Bryce Underwood coming in, but there is still a reasonable path for Rising in Ann Arbor. Perhaps Moore wants to sit Underwood for his first year. Teams don't typically spend $10 million on a player to have him ride the bench, but it would not be the worst idea. After all, the last highly touted freshman to serve his first year as a Wolverine as a backup was McCarthy. Any team that accepts Rising will need a quality Plan B given his injury history, which Underwood would unquestionably be.
Yet, that decision would likely not sit well with Underwood, the No. 1 prospect of the class of 2025, nor would it be handled well by fans. There is no guarantee that Rising would be the better player, even with his experience. If he does come back for an eighth year, Rising would not want to waste that decision and spend another year on the sidelines.
It might not be the perfect fit, but it would work out for both sides. Rising would immediately return the Wolverines to contender status and might be his best chance to win the elusive championship he seeks.
Why Cam Rising should transfer to Wisconsin
Wisconsin has been trying to find their answer at quarterback from the transfer portal for a while now. It just has not been working. Tyler Van Dyke was only the latest plan to fail, not unlike Tanner Mordecai did before him. Perhaps they will go back into that well in 2025 with Rising.
Back in 2018, Luke Fickell was with Cincinnati, a team considered interested in Rising but did not submit an offer. Seven years later, their pairing could finally materialize. Maybe the climate change from Utah to Wisconsin would be too drastic for Rising to stomach. But for one year, he would be the best quarterback to land in Madison in well over a decade.
Like most of their recent years, the Badgers started strong in 2024, going 5-2 in their first seven games. The switch to Braedyn Locke at quarterback seemed to be working until Wisconsin fell off a cliff and ended the season on a five-game skid. It seems unlikely that Fickell would return to Locke in 2025, making them a team to monitor in the offseason.
While Wisconsin has historically not been a program built around the passing game, the hiring of Fickell meant to change that. Rising would be the first player to give him that opportunity in his fourth year with the team.
