The end for Jordan Wynn

Utah quarterback Jordan Wynn is no longer a Utah quarterback:

Utah starting quarterback Jordan Wynn, whose career has been plagued by injuries, is giving up football and will not play again for the Utes, coach Kyle Whittingham said Monday.

In Friday's loss at Utah State, Wynn left in the first half after injuring his left non-throwing shoulder. Last season, he suffered a season-ending injury after four games to the same shoulder.

Also, in 2010, Wynn also suffered thumb and shoulder injuries.

Wow. Utah had released an injury update earlier Monday that included the word "indefinite," which sounded pretty bad but probably wasn't expected to be "forever."

When not hurt, Wynn was pretty good: He started the latter half of his freshman year in '09 and stayed in the "pretty good" range basically whenever he was on the field, which wasn't very often. His career numbers: 60 percent passing for 7.4 yards per attempt with 33 touchdowns and 17 picks in three half-seasons (plus a game and a half this year). Can't help but feel bad for the guy; can't blame him, either, seeing as how his shoulder apparently can't stay together any better than Mark Prior's. There's an alternate universe where Wynn is taking Utah to nine-win seasons and Holiday Bowls and whatnot and going into next year (when he'd have been a redshirt senior) as the second-team All-Pac-12 quarterback.

As for Utah, last year's team went 6-3 after Wynn went down but was an offensive crater in those three losses, putting up 14 points against ASU, 10 against Cal and 14 against Colorado en route to finishing a pathetic 109th nationally in total offense. It should be noted that Jon Hays was awful in the former two games but OK in the latter one; he definitely got better as the year went on, although he was pretty bad the other night (12 for 26 with a touchdown late) and ended up sharing snaps with freshman Travis Wilson. Hays (a senior who was a juco transfer last year) and Wilson are now listed as co-starters.

Utah was getting a lot of probably unreasonable preseason hype that's definitely unreasonable now that (a) the quarterback play has gone from "pretty good" to "mediocre enough to lose to  Utah State" and (b) the other previously mediocre teams in the division/conference are slightly less mediocre now that they have offenses. It's pretty hard to see Utah doing a whole lot against a schedule that still includes BYU, ASU (in Tempe), USC, UCLA (in Los Angeles), Washington (in Seattle) and Arizona unless John White becomes LaDainian Tomlinson circa 2000, which seems unlikely.

Too bad. Wynn probably deserved a better fate, and Utah wasn't gonna win anything this year (other than maybe the Best Team In The South Other Than USC Award) but might have been relevant next year with a good fifth-year senior at quarterback. Alas.