The success of Utah's 2025 season rests, in large part, on the shoulders of the Utes' offense and new offensive coordinator Jason Beck .
Under defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley, the Utes' defense has largely been good-to-elite, often ranking near the top of the conference. During the past two seasons, it's been the offense underperforming in the absence of quarterback Cam Rising that has been the crux of the issue, leading to an 8-5 season in 2023 and a 5-7 campaign in 2024.
Since the end of a season that saw the Utes lose seven consecutive games — the longest losing streak of the Kyle Whittingham era — there's been a massive offensive overhaul.
New Mexico's Jason Beck was hired as the school's new offensive coordinator — Utah's first since 2019 — after Andy Ludwig resigned midseason, and he stepped into a whirlwind couple of weeks with the transfer portal.
Every single scholarship running back from the 2024 roster either graduated or entered the transfer portal, and the Utes picked up two new transfer quarterbacks (New Mexico's Devon Dampier and Oklahoma's Brendan Zurbrugg) and three new wide receivers (Utah State's Otto Tia, New Mexico's Ryan Davis and Mississippi State's Creed Whittemore).
There's little doubt that Utah's offense in 2025 will look different than it did over the past two years, and should — at the very least — be more exciting to watch.
While it's hard to get worse than some of the performances from last season, time will tell if the Utes can complete an offensive U-turn in an offseason.
As a result of all the changes, there's a high level of uncertainty around the Utes' offense, aside from the offensive line, which returns every single starter (Spencer Fano, Caleb Lomu, Micahel Mokofisi, Jaren Kump and Tanoa Togiai) from last year.
There's going to be a lot of new contributors — which is the new norm in this era of college football — and that's a big reason why Utah hired Beck. His offensive system is going to be easier for new players to pick up in an offseason than Ludwig's would have been.
At New Mexico, Beck's system was predicated heavily on the run-pass option with a lot of quarterback runs — Dampier rushed for 1,166 yards and 19 touchdowns and passed for 2,768 yards, 12 touchdowns and 12 interceptions — and with Dampier following Beck to Salt Lake City, the expectation for next season is similar.
"Well, it's more wide open, more spread formations, a lot of (QB run) game, not quite as much implementation of the tight ends," Whittingham said. "Although that being said, Jason is a really good judge of talent, who to use to get the most out of each guy and tweaking things to fit the personnel, which is really critical in football obviously is to play to the strengths of your players and not try to put a square peg in the round hole. That's something that he's done a really good job with."
Utah's offense will likely revolve around Dampier, who was one of the most productive quarterbacks in the nation last season as the catalyst for an offense that generated 484.2 yards per game (fourth-best in the country) and scored 33.5 points per game (No. 27 in the country).
"The offense is just kind of based around playing to your personnel, to your players. So it's all about identifying the best players and putting them in positions to have success and to play well," said Beck, a former BYU quarterback and quarterbacks coach.
He continued, "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 skill people around it, but it's QB-centered and play to your personnel."
While Dampier brought a lot of positives to New Mexico's offense, which was one of the best in the nation last year, there's a few things necessary to work on as he makes the jump to the Big 12.
First and foremost is improving his accuracy (he was one of the least-accurate passers in Division I football at a 57.9% completion rate) and cutting down on turnovers.
Beck and Whittingham feel like Dampier will improve on those aspects of his game next season.
"We expect to get his completion percentage bumped up a little bit this year. We think that'll happen just through maturity and familiarity in the system," Whittingham said.
University of Utah football's new offensive coordinator Jason Beck talks with media in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, as winter workouts begin. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Aside from his play, Dampier brings knowledge and familiarity with Beck's offensive system, which will ease the transition to a new offensive coordinator for the whole team.
"Just his example to help the other guys or show what it's supposed to look like at a high level for the other guys to come around and how that permeates throughout the offensive guys is a big positive," Beck said.
Beck was very involved in the transfer portal, hitting the ground running and bringing in a bevy of offensive transfers, including Washington State running back Wayshawn Parker, who was one of the top running backs in the portal after rushing for 735 yards and four touchdowns and adding 11 receptions for 108 yards and one touchdown.
"He's really a tough physical running back, can run inside, can run outside, has great contact, balance, breaks tackles, yards after contact and he was just a freshman last year," Whittingham said. "He's got a big upside and we're excited about what he can do."
The running back room has seen a complete makeover, adding Parker, New Mexico's NaQuari Rogers and UNLV's Devin Green along with freshmen Raycine Guillory and Daniel Bray.
Utah's top top wide receivers — Dorian Singer and Money Parks — are out of eligibility, but Singer is attempting to petition the NCAA for another year of eligibility. That would be a significant boon for Utah's offense if it is approved.
"That's being worked on. You got to have a case, you got to have reasons why, much like the young man at Vanderbilt that got his extra year," Whittingham said. "Dorian would like nothing more than a return with us. I can't give you a percentage or anything like that. I can't tell you that it's still a process right now. We're trying every which way to see if we can get him one more year."
If Singer's petition is denied, Utah would need to find a new WR1 from a group that includes Daidren Zipperer, Zacharyus Williams and Luca Caldarella, as well as Tia, Davis and Whittemore.
While Beck's offense at New Mexico did not make a lot of use of tight ends, he will adapt at Utah and put the best players on the field.
"If it's a strength, tight end play, then man, we'll play with two tight ends," Beck said.
The Utes lost Carsen Ryan to BYU and Brant Kuithe to graduation, but return Landen King and Dallen Bentley and added Drew Clemens, plus Broderick Redden and Bear Tenney as walk-ons to fill out the room.
There's plenty of work to be done throughout the spring and fall as Beck implements the offense and decides which players will be part of the rotation, but the work to improve Utah's dreary offense from the past two seasons is already underway.
"What a great opportunity to be a part of such a great program, the success they've had over a long period of time and winning conference championships. It was just a no-brainer for me to be able to join such a great program and to be a part of it," Beck said.
