Gutting a deer is just part of proper butchery. I can understand the desire to skip it, just skin and butcher, but...I dunno, that deer died for you, the least you can do is give it a proper gutting.

My father and law and the couple of guys he hunts with just do enough skinning to remove the backstraps (which is very little) and then leave the whole deer, minus straps, virtually intact, laying in the woods. To me, this seems both wasteful and disrespectful.