Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Nate Johnson returns to Utah as a versatile player, dubbed the "Swiss Army knife."
- Coach Kyle Whittingham values Johnson's speed and size for diverse offensive roles.
- Johnson's role aims to boost Utah's offense, complementing starting quarterback Devon Dampier.
SALT LAKE CITY — After a one-year stint outside of the program, Nate Johnson is back at Utah.
The dual-threat quarterback tested the waters and spent a year at Vanderbilt before returning to the Utes with almost an entirely new roster and set of coaches on the offensive side of the ball.
He remains listed as a quarterback on the official roster, but Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham has given Johnson a different position in his return: the team's Swiss Army knife.
While not an official position — outside of the de facto "athlete" designation often given to players — it's a sign of what is to come for the talented player looking to make an impact on the field any way possible.
"We hope he's a contributor, and that's why we brought him back into the program," Whittingham said, "because he's a multi-faceted athlete, and he can do a bunch of stuff. He's got great speed and good size. So, yeah, we brought him here to be somewhat of a Swiss Army knife."
That multi-faceted approach is actually what attracted Johnson back to Utah. After spending the bulk of his collegiate career focused solely on the quarterback position — including a few starts at the position for the Utes during the 2023 season — Johnson was ready for a change.
"I came back to play the athlete role — being the Swiss Army knife, doing quarterback, doing everything," Johnson said. "And I'm really glad to be back here. Coach Whitt has that trust in me to be a Swiss Army knife, and he trusted me to come back here and be a playmaker."
Johnson is back at Utah to do whatever offensive coordinator Jason Beck wants him to do — or as Johnson put it, "just making plays; that's all it is."
And in the small sample size of spring camp, Johnson has already lived up to the team's request. He's been lined up all over the field, and has found ways to make impact plays.
Sometimes his role has been to throw the ball, but a majority of the time he'll do his damage on the run.
But showcasing that in spring means little if it doesn't translate on the field in fall.
Johnson, though, has shown flashes that add to an already diverse offensive scheme that Beck can utilize with starting quarterback Devon Dampier — a proven dual-threat weapon — to add more confusion to what defenses will see in fall.
If Dampier can provide confusion to opposing defenses consistently — a basic tenet of his game when he was at New Mexico as he led the team to the fourth-best offense in the country — what happens if you have two similar players on the field at the same time?
Dampier will remain the team's starting signal caller, but Johnson can be thrown in for designed run or passing plays under center, while also providing flexibility and intrigue at running back or wide receiver.
If Johnson is on the field, things are bound to get interesting — or at least that's Utah's hope.
He can view the game as a quarterback would — reading coverages or picking up on pre-snap assignments — while having the flexibility to just do what he does best on the field. To him, all of that is a "big advantage" in how he hopes to perform on the field.
However Johnson factors into the offensive game plan remains to be seen, but it gives Utah more options.
And in Beck's somewhat more wide open offense, Johnson could be a real X-factor for a team looking to rebound from arguably its worst offensive production in Whittingham's coaching tenure.
