Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Devon Dampier, a New Mexico transfer, quickly gains trust from Utah teammates.
- Dampier emphasizes building relationships, earning leadership council spot after just weeks.
- Coach Whittingham sees Dampier as a future captain, crucial for offensive reset.
SALT LAKE CITY — In just a few short months, Devon Dampier has already made his presence known.
Sure, he's the projected starting quarterback, so everyone is going to pay attention to the New Mexico transfer who threw for 2,768 yards and 12 touchdowns, and rushed for an additional 1,166 yards and 19 touchdowns last season.
But Dampier's early impact has been felt more by who he is and not what he's done on the field, though that's starting to be highlighted more as spring camp continues, too.
Dampier has put himself out there to show everyone on the team he cares and that they're valued to him. In turn, he's gotten the trust of his teammates beyond how he performs.
"I feel like the biggest part is definitely showing at first," Dampier said. "At our workouts, I'm always giving 100%. I talk to everyone on the team — special teams, offense, obviously, defense; it doesn't matter. I want to get close to all my teammates. I just think they see that, obviously, I care about my teammates, and they can trust me, so that's just my biggest part.
"You can't make it into that championship level without trust," he added. "So trust is the biggest thing. I allowed my teammates to see the way I work, and they believe in me, so I believe in those guys."
And most importantly, he takes care of the guys up front, the big guys who protect him and whose job it is to keep him upright. Dampier said he regularly talks to them and does various things with them outside of football, like buying a meal or simply creating a "brotherhood" that will bode well in fall.
"We play football all day, so just being able to get to know guys outside of here, that's really important to me," Dampier said.
And that leadership quality isn't lost on right tackle Spencer Fano, who described Dampier as "a dog" and "special" as he got a big smile on his face as he talked about his quarterback.
"He brings a lot to the table," Fano said.
In return, Fano and his fellow linemen have made life much easier for Dampier to work with efficiency on the field. It's also given Dampier a voice on a new team in which there is 50% turnover from the year before.
His example off the field, while producing on the field, led to the quarterback being named to the spring leadership council — an honor voted on by all the players. That alone, head coach Kyle Whittingham said, is a good sign as to the kind of trust Dampier has gained already.
"He is the leader of the offense, as far as knowing what to do, making sure everyone else knows what they're doing. And he made the leadership council only having been here like two or three weeks. ... I would assume that some point he'll be a captain with so many new players," Whittingham said.
And though the early results have been positive on the leadership front, what he'll most be remembered for by the public is his level of play on the field. Given the down season last year on offense for the Utes, fans are hungry to see more — especially from a dynamic quarterback.
On the first day of full pads for the team, Dampier orchestrated a lively end of practice session that featured a diverse playbook from newly-named offensive coordinator Jason Beck. And while not every decision was perfect, it was a small sample size to showcase what Dampier can do in the offense.
And with his familiarity with Beck, following him from New Mexico, the early install has been relatively smooth.
"That goes back to trust," Dampier said. "If coach Beck has me in there and he feels they can call any play, it opens up the playbook a lot more. So just him having the freedom to call anything he wants and knowing I'm gonna make the best decision possible, it just means a lot of chemistry between us."
That chemistry with the team and his coaches will only continue to grow as the year goes on, but it's been a good early sign for an offense that needed a full reset in the offseason.
Dampier is now entrusted with the keys to unlock Utah's potential in a new era for the offense.
