Utah teams

Utah

After Whittingham

Kyle Whittingham led Utah from 2005 through 2025, became the program's all-time wins leader, and stepped down after the Las Vegas Bowl before being hired by Michigan. Morgan Scalley, his defensive coordinator since 2016 and a Utah player before that, was promoted to replace him.

Scalley has spent his entire coaching career at Utah, which makes this an unusually smooth version of a transition that is normally disruptive. He inherits a team that went 11-2 in 2025 and finished 14th in the final AP poll.

Utah

Rice-Eccles

Utah's stadium hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the cauldron still stands outside it. Few college venues have that kind of second life.

The student section, known as the MUSS, is among the more organized and consistently loud in the country, which matters at altitude in Salt Lake City where visiting teams are already dealing with thinner air.

Utah

From the Mountain West to the Big 12

Utah's trajectory is one of the better arguments that a program can climb. An undefeated 2008 season, capped by beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, made the case that a team outside the traditional power structure could compete with anyone. The program has since moved through the Pac-12 and into the Big 12.