State of the Program: Utah Utes

Head Coach: Kyle Whittingham is entering his 21st season as the head coach of the Utes with a 167-86 record. He is the all-time winningest coach in program history and has led the Utes to 3 conference championships, a Sugar Bowl win, a Fiesta Bowl wins, 2 Rose Bowl appearances and 3 more conference championship game appearances. He led the program through a lot of change, as he led them into the Pac-12 and now the Big 12. DC Morgan Scalley is the head coach in waiting which indicates that he plans to step aside in the next few years, but the question is can he go out with a bang?

Program Outlook: Utah’s Big 12 debut didn’t go as expected. The Utes were expected to jump in an maybe even win the conference immediately but instead they suffered a shocking 5-7 season thanks to a litany of problems on offense. Now they’re in a position they’re more comfortable with, they no longer have a target on their back, they’re not brought up among Big 12 contenders and are fully back in the underdog role. Still, the internal expectations are the same, Utah expects to be back in contention to win this conference.

How does the 2025 Roster look?: Utah ranks 18th in the country returning 65.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players for the Utes starts with QB Devon Dampier, he was absolutely electric for New Mexico and will now help lead the Utes new look offense. The New Mexico infusion continues with former Lobos RB NaQuari Rogers joining Washington State transfer Wayshawn Parker in the backfield. The final element that makes this run game dangerous is the offensive line. This line is loaded with BIGGER MEATIER MEN, OTs Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu are both potential NFL prospects on each side, and Tanoa Togiai is likely the largest man on this front weighing 320lbs. Utah’s defense has faced the brunt of the pressure for the last couple years while the offense struggled and generally it held up. The defensive line is traditionally strong and massive, DE Logan Fano is expected to be the most dangerous pass rusher of the group. The linebackers are a loaded group with Lander Barton returning and they expect a lot from Johnathan Hall as well. This unit will likely be rounded out very well with the return of their thumper Levani Damuni who missed all of last year. The secondary is led by corner Elijah Davis and a strong safety duo in Tao Johnson and Smith Snowden. The question marks for Utah starts with the passing game on offense where they are trying to piece it together with some portal players, Ryan Davis from New Mexico will make for a good safety net that Dampier knows well and Utah State transfer Otto Tia will make for a nice big target but they’ll hope for more to emerge there. The defensive line has good size but is inexperienced that might be something to watch early in the year with the early road games. Utah’s secondary outside of Davis, Johnson and Snowden needs to be sorted out.

Screenshot from FBSchedules.com

2025 Schedule Thoughts: Utah has a pretty challenging schedule in 2025. The Utes non-conference opens with an old Pac-12 game against UCLA. Utah follows it up with a game against Cal Poly who went 3-8 at the FCS level last year and they finish with an old Mountain West game against a Wyoming team that struggled last year but it’s in Laramie where strange things have been known to happen. Utah’s Big 12 schedule has some positives, the Utes get home games against Texas Tech, Cincinnati, and Kansas State who are all not familiar with Utah’s home environment, they also host Colorado who beat on the road in 2011 when this first became an annual series but the Buffaloes haven’t won at Utah since. The one downside to that Colorado game is that it occurs a week after the Holy War which will be an intense game. Utah will face some tough opponents on the road as well. This schedule seems to help Utah overall, they will be a massive problem for a lot of teams and they aren’t far away from being a contender themselves.

Final Thoughts: There’s a variety of directions this season can go and the non-conference plays it’s part. If Utah expects to be a Big 12 contender they should start fast and dispatch UCLA and Wyoming, but both those games are very losable. The key to Utah’s season will be the offense, it was painfully bad last year and sunk the whole team now they have a new offensive coordinator in Jason Beck and he brought his QB with in Dampier to run a system that lit up defenses last year for New Mexico. Beck was a fascinating addition because he is a former BYU QB and Whittingham took him from old foe Bronco Mendenhall who went to Utah State, all the Beehive State connections here! A transformed offense gets Utah back in the thick of the Big 12 race, a slightly improved offense probably gets them around 6-8 wins.