Utah hires former BYU QB Jason Beck as team's newest offensive coordinator

SALT LAKE CITY — It was always going to be an offseason of change for Utah football.

Utah needed some fresh blood on the offensive side of the ball after suffering back-to-back difficult seasons. And after reportedly being in conversations with both Ben Arbuckle and Mack Leftwich, Utah settled upon a new offensive coordinator for the 2025 season.

On Thursday, Utah announced a deal with Jason Beck, a former BYU QB who was last an offensive coordinator at New Mexico, and its offensive coordinator and quarterback coach.

Beck comes to Utah after leading the Lobos to the fourth-best total offense in the country at 484.3 yards per game, largely due to a highly-effective ground game that averaged 253.6 yards per game as the fifth-best team in the country.

That ground game excelled as a result of quarterback Devon Dampier, who recently announced his intention to enter the transfer portal, rushed for a team-high 1,166 yards and 19 touchdowns, while junior running back Eli Sanders added 1,063 yards and nine touchdowns.

After a playing career at BYU from 2004-06, Beck stayed at his alma mater as a graduate assistant before eventually accepting a quarterback coach position at Weber State from 2009-11. He later returned to BYU to coach the quarterbacks from 2013-15 before moving to Virginia (2016-21) with former BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall.

Beck spent a season as the QB coach at Syracuse before being promoted to the offensive coordinator position in 2023, where he stayed for a season before rejoining Mendenhall in New Mexico for the 2024 season.

For the one season Beck was offensive coordinator at Syracuse, the Orange finished 99th in total offense, but the team suffered a bevy of injuries on the offensive side of the ball and were forced to play a tight end and wide receiver at quarterback at one point in the year.

With the hire, Utah hopes to get more production than a 2024 season in which the Utes finished 115th with an average of 329.8 yards per game. Even a moderately-executed offense last season would have give Utah arguably more wins.

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