As someone who grew up in a small farm town that proudly calls itself “the Onion Capital of the World” and is home to more cows than people, I couldn't help but chuckle when I read Utah football coach Kyle Wittingham's quote on his quarterback, Bryson Barnes, following the Utes win over the USC Trojans.

“They've got a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback, so they're gonna make some things, and that's just the way it is. But we've got ourselves a pig farmer at quarterback, so we're proud of that guy, too.” (h/t Josh Furlong, Utah Athletics Beat Writer, Twitter)

To some, this quote could potentially come off as a playful shot at the humble upbringing of Bryson Barnes, who lists pig farming as work experience in his own LinkedIn bio, along with plumbing, installing solar panels, and serving as a customer associate at Lowes. It's not. Whittingham obviously has nothing but love for the former walk-on who received a scholarship following the Utes' opening week win versus the Florida Gators, where Barnes was required to step in for the injured Cam Rising.

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I obviously cannot speak for Bryson Barnes, who had his best game of the season thus far against USC, but I can speak from my own experience… oftentimes when you come from a town like Elba, New York (my hometown) or Milford, Utah (where Bryson Barnes is from), it stays with you and becomes a part of your identity no matter where you go or what you end up doing with your life. To this day, 13 years after I left Elba, I still enjoy telling people that I grew up in a town with fewer than 1,000 people, and that my graduating class had 48 kids (we started with 49, but one dropped out a couple of months before graduation).

With Cam Rising recently ruled out for the season with a knee injury, the keys to Utah football car are now in Bryson Barnes' capable hands, and I say they're ‘capable hands' because if Barnes has pig farming experience, he surely knows his way around a tractor, truck, or any large vehicle for that matter.