LAS VEGAS — As players and coaches milled around the team hotel just off the Las Vegas Strip, taking in all the fun and entertainment the bowl game presented them over the last week, few would recognize anything out of the ordinary.
There were team meetings and practices, service opportunities, a trip to the Las Vegas Sphere to see the “Wizard of Oz,” and many other elements tied to being at the Las Vegas Bowl.
It has been business as usual for Utah football.
But underneath the surface has been some level of uncertainty as former long-time Utah coach Kyle Whittingham has reportedly pushed to hire away several members of the coaching staff — most notably offensive coordinator Jason Beck and offensive line coach Jim Harding, among others.
And then what about the players that could soon follow in the transfer portal when it opens on Jan. 2?
Amid all the distractions, newly-named head coach Morgan Scalley is simply focused on the present.
Tomorrow and its uncertainty will certainly come, but that’s for another day. The Las Vegas Bowl remains the No. 1 priority for everyone involved in building back Utah to a 10-2 program, with a chance to end the season with an 11th win.
“It’s all about the game,” Scalley said during a Las Vegas Bowl press conference Tuesday morning.
“Any bowl experiences I’ve ever been to you remember the game and the outcome more than anything,” he said. “And the events have been incredible, but we are here, and we are here to play the game. We’re here to win, and that’s what our guys understand.
“This is not only a program, it’s a family, and that’s going to continue,” Scalley added. “The standard that Kyle Whittingham set, it’s always tough — you don’t want to be the guy that follows the guy. Well, I am that guy. I’m extremely confident in moving forward.”
And that message has continued on down to his team, who said they have felt a renewed sense of energy and excitement with Scalley taking over as head coach and leading the team into its final game of the season.
“It’s been a very smooth transition, and it kind of just happened upon us quickly,” senior linebacker Lander Barton said. “But, I mean, there’s no changes. Practice is structured the same way, all our schedule is the same. So, I mean, it’s kind of like a new energy, new life. Really, it’s exciting.
“The future is here. We knew it was coming, but we didn’t know it was gonna come this fast. And so, I mean, I think it’s just new excitement for everybody; that’s probably the biggest change.”
It’s what starting quarterback Devon Dampier believes makes this year’s Utah team special, especially with all but three players — including two potential first-round picks in the NFL draft — staying to play in the bowl game.
It’s a team that is “built off love,” Dampier said, and one that is looking to send the seniors out with a win.
“We’re just excited for the opportunity to be here — one last ride for the boys,” he said. “Our team is built off of love, which is very rare in college — in the way college football is going now. It’s rare to see a team that they want to go out there and play this last game for each other. Just the number of seniors I want to continue to play, not sitting out; and, man, it’s just, it sparks my heart. It’s like, man, this is real love that we got going on here, so I’m excited to get one more with those guys.”
But in a game that was supposed to be Whittingham’s send-off, Scalley now takes over as head coach. And while he’ll be the one ultimately making all the decisions — including still calling all the defensive plays for the bowl game — he’s looking to establish early what his mark on the program will be moving forward.
Much of that culture will be built over the next few months and years, but Wednesday’s bowl game and the practices leading up to it have already given a glimpse into what others can expect from Scalley.
“I think you can expect a lot of energy on the sideline,” Barton said of his coach. “He emanates energy every day in the building — just laughing, joking around. But then when it’s time to get serious and go to work, he can do that. He can just buckle up and it’s time to go.
“It’s fun to be out there when you can just be loose and be yourself, and you have trust in your coaches, and you know your coaches are having fun out there, too. So I think you’ll be able to see that tomorrow on the field. Just see that different energy on the sideline.”
And for Scalley, it’s simply trying to “be true to myself and who I am as a coach.” It’s not being Whittingham or any of the other coaches he was under from his playing days or working alongside with on the defensive side of the ball.
“Culture is what you believe, how you behave, and the experience that’s delivered by that behavior,” Scalley said. “And the No. 1 thing that I want to be able to establish is what is that culture. And a lot of those elements are going to continue from what Kyle did, but it’s getting people, getting everyone on board, and moving that same direction, is what our culture is going to be. You cannot outperform the culture that you want in your program, you just can’t do it.”
That Scalley program remains a future projection, including how all the pieces are going to come together to fill his coaching staff and the players who will be on the roster, but that can wait.
But Scalley isn’t sitting on his hands waiting to react to what’s happening around him; he remains active in building his program — for the bowl game, for the 2026 season, and for the future to what he’s hoping to build in his dream job as a lifelong “Utah Man.”
“Is there a plan in place? You better believe it, and our players understand,” Scalley said. “And this is what college football is now. Change is going to happen, right? And how you handle that says everything about your program. So my job is to sell Utah and to prepare for the future of this program, and that’s what we’re doing. But the priority No. 1 is sending these guys out the right way, and then we move on from there.
“I was made aware that we were over 0-4 by the Nebraska media; they let me know that,” he added. “So it’s like, ‘All right, that’s the challenge. That’s the gauntlets been set down.’ So we’re excited for this moment. I’m excited for our players.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.