'Fired up for this offense': Utah football coaches embrace offensive makeover

SALT LAKE CITY — It's been an offseason of change for Utah football, and it's only been a month.

After a disappointing 5-7 season, in which Utah missed out on a bowl game and hired a new offensive staff to kickoff the offseason, the coaching staff went for a full "makeover" of the team roster, according to head coach Kyle Whittingham.

"Like every single program in the country, we felt like we did a good job in recruiting," Whittingham said. "It was a blend of portal players and high school players coming into the break — 30 altogether, 30 new faces, scholarship players. There'll be another 12 to 16 that we add in the summertime, which will make for a 50% roster makeover — additions. And so that's the major college football now."

It's the new era of college football, and one Utah has not been immune to. But instead of dwelling on the players no longer in the program, Whittingham and staff have chosen to look forward as it continues to embrace the "culture" of the program — a way of doing things since Whittingham took over as head coach 20 years ago.

As has always been the case with Utah football.

"It's more challenging, obviously," Whittingham admitted. "With more guys new than returners in the fall, it's not quite as simple as it used to be, but we have a very strong culture here with the guys that are returning. It's up to them to educate, indoctrinate the new guys into how we do things. And we have a certain way of doing things here, and we expect that to continue."

Defensive coordinator and eventual Utah head coach Morgan Scalley echoed that sentiment.

"I love every player that comes into this program to sacrifice and gives and buys in this culture, and you love them," Scalley said. "And when they leave this program, you hope they go on to be the men that you've taught them to be. And at the same time, my job is to develop the guys that we have in this program, and I do a disservice to them by spending much time on guys that aren't a part of our team anymore."

But the reality of college football makes that more of a challenge for a team like Utah that has embraced consistency, maturation — read time — within the program, and a certain buy-in to the culture.

That's still present, the coaches say, but it's tougher to get the same buy-in with some players who instead chase NIL opportunities from other schools. But Utah feels it has an improved roster that will help the Utes be competitive again.

And it starts on offense.

As has been documented over the offseason, Utah went all in on rebuilding an offense. Whittingham hired Jason Beck to be the team's offensive coordinator, while rounding it out with the additions of Mark Atuaia (running backs) and Micah Simon (wide receivers).

"Excited about (Beck's) schemes and his energy and what it brings," Whittingham said.

So what will the new offense look like under Beck? It's all about the personnel.

"It's more wide open, more spread formations, lot of Q-run game, not quite as much implementation of the tight ends; although, that being said, Jason is a really good judge of talent — who to use, getting the most out of each guy and tweaking things to fit the personnel, which is really critical in football, obviously," Whittingham said. "It is to play to the strengths of your players and not try to put a square peg in a round hole, and that's something that he's done a really good job in three years."

Added Beck: "The offense is just kind of based around playing to your personnel, to your players. So it's all about identifying your best players and putting them in positions to have success and to play well. A lot of times that's driven through the quarterback; it starts with him. It starts with the O-line, with what they can do and then it goes to the other skilled people around it. But it's QB-centered and play to your personnel."

That puts a lot of emphasis on transfer quarterback Devon Dampier, who followed Beck from New Mexico to Utah.

Dampier is a true dual-threat quarterback who helped lift New Mexico into on of the best offenses in the country last season. And while he needs to continue to improve and mature in the system — specifically with a higher completion percentage — both Whittingham and Beck feel confident in him to lead a room that was a "almost a complete makeover."

"Devon is a true, every sense of the word dual-threat quarterback," Whittingham said. "He's a terrific runner, he's a very good thrower. We expect to get his completion percentage bumped up a little bit this year, we think that will happen just for maturity and familiarity in the system. But he's a guy that was only sacked four times last year, and it wasn't because of stellar protection all the time.

"He's very mobile in the pocket," he added. "He has great pocket awareness, and to me that's a remarkable stat to only have four sacks. And so we think that he's, obviously, the perfect fit for this offense. He is an improvement from last year, and so we're excited."

Beck said there will be an "art to managing" how much Dampier runs in the offense, but he remains the central figure to what Utah hopes to do with an offense the coaching staff expects to be improved.

"He has a really good ability to protect himself, so he's not taking direct shots and those kind of things," Beck said. "A lot of times, guys who have that skill set, they are that way. As a runner, they can protect themselves at a pretty high level. It's more the other times that the injuries come up, you know, the unexpected type of thing. But yeah, you've gotta manage that."

It's an offensive system that has Scalley excited, too, as he thinks about how a defense would contend with what Utah could try to do moving forward.

"I, obviously, have watched a ton of his offense, and I love it. It creates problems for defensive coordinators for a multitude of reasons: the formations into the boundary, the shifts in motions, the QB run game, a lot of these things, changing personnel groups as you go throughout a series. All that causes defensive coordinators to really have to put in the work, and so I'm so fired up for this offense.

"It's going to be interesting this spring going up against the new offense, because I love Andy (Ludwig) and what he brought and his offensive scheme, but excited for this change."

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