‘I’m one of you’: Just being himself, Morgan Scalley lays out his vision for Utah football

SALT LAKE CITY — With no prepared remarks in hand, Morgan Scalley was simply himself — emotions and all.

And what resulted was a true convincing of everyone gathered in the Julie M. & Davis S. Layton Field Club, and those watching online, Tuesday afternoon that Scalley was the right man to take over as the head coach of Utah football.

“I’m a baby,” Scalley said as he got emotional to open his remarks, “but, man, is our team gonna rip your face off.”

Scalley weaved through the intricacies of his lifetime love of Utah, set forth his vision for the program, and declared Utah a destination where a national championship can be realized. He paid tribute to the past and to all who helped build Utah and his career, while acknowledging that the program is more than himself as the new head coach.

“I’m one of you,” he declared. “All of you that are sitting in here that went through the same thing: I’m a fan. I’m a Ute. Have been forever, will be.

“When that time comes and I’m done, someone else will step up; I understand that. It’s not about me, it’s not about one person; it never will be. It is about these guys, it is about the players, and players win championships — teams win championships, not individuals. So while my name is going to be out there, and this is history, and I get it and I love it, it’s all about the guys.”

Scalley takes pride in the fact he’s never gone anywhere else, even when the outlook wasn’t always great and there was no guarantee of a coaching position opening up at Utah. He remains deeply committed to the University of Utah and the football program he’s already helped build.

But for all that will be done between the sidelines — and Scalley has a clear plan in place for his team — he said he wants to teach his players to “become great men.” The football side of things is temporary.

“The goal here is to create greatness,” he said. “We will teach them skill sets and mindsets in this game. And if the only skill sets we teach are how to become a better football player, we are failing them, because at some point no one cares about your 40 time, no one cares about how high you can jump — that skill set runs out.

“There are so many more things that we teach you guys right about what it takes to be successful in life that go beyond the game, the transfer. That’s why I coach.”

He’s wasn’t shy about his goal of turning Utah into a national championship contender, saying he’s always believed that Utah can be in that conversation. And he said he plans on doing that by being “physical” and being “on the cutting edge.”

It’s not enough, he said, to stick with a set scheme or way of doing things and expect that to continue to be successful. Instead, he wants to be “innovative” and always learning, on both sides of the ball, to give Utah its best chance to succeed in all facets of the game.

“We are going to be smash mouth, we’re going to score and we’re going to play great defense,” he declared.

There will be pieces of Kyle Whittingham still in the culture of Utah football, but Scalley said he’ll do things his own way as he brings along other aspects from all he’s learned under — including those outside of the program who he has studied.

It will be a work in progress for a future that remains adaptable to the ever-changing ways of collegiate sports. There’s no end goal or legacy talk, he said, it’s about living “one day at a time and give everything I have.”

“At the end of the day, it’s good enough or it’s not good enough,” he said. “And then the results will speak for themselves. Abraham Lincoln said, ‘I do the best I can, the best I know how, and I need to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will amount to nothing,’ And so I just pour everything into it.”

In his view, there’s no reason to fear the future of the program.

“You have to trust the process that we’re going to continue to reload and that we’re continuing to get the right people in here,” he said. “And to those who are fearful and want to leave, that’s OK, because we will bring the ones that want to be here, and we will develop them and love them, and we’re going to do everything we can. I’ve got an unbelievable coaching staff. The future is bright here. At the end of the day, you’re either in the boat or you’re out.”

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.