There’s the Power Conference experience from one of the sport’s traditional titans.
Too, there’s an NFL background.
And rounding things out? Ivy League work where every ounce of resources matter.
Joe D’Orazio brings it all with him to Morgan Scalley’s University of Utah program.
Oh, he also brings with him previous experience with the Utes.
D’Orazio is Utah’s new general manager, multiple sources tell FootballScoop, arriving after spending the 2025 season as a top off-the-field staffer in Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans program and also filling what arguably now is the sport’s most important position — outside of head coach and strength and conditioning.
Following a year serving as Riley’s director of football strategy and in an offensive analyst role, D’Orazio – a former Ivy Leaguer who played offensive line for the University of Penn Quakers — brings with him 15 years’ professional experience with him to Salt Lake City.
He sits atop a new front office structure under Scalley, with sources telling FootballScoop that previous G.M. Robert Blechen is joining the personnel department at the University of. Michigan.
D’Orazio’s served in both on- and off-the-field roles in a career that also includes NFL stops with the Kansas City Chiefs, serving as a special assistant to head coach Andy Reid, and the Philadelphia Eagles, working as an assistant wide receivers coach.
Additionally, D’Orazio owns experience at fellow Big 12 Conference member Baylor as well as a five-year stint at his alma mater’s Ivy League rival — Columbia.
D’Orazio’s first exposure to Utah Utes football came in 2012, a year in which he served as a graduate assistant and first became acquainted with new Utah head coach Morgan Scalley.
At that time, Scalley was in the middle of his stretch as Utah’s safeties coach and recruiting coordinator under Kyle Whittingham, who stepped down from the Utah program last month and then elected to accept the University of Michigan’s mutli-year offer to become head coach of the Wolverines. Michigan had fired incumbent head coach Sherrone Moore in early December following Moore’s felony arrest as well as the school’s own probe into Moore’s alleged illicit behavior.
D’Orazio, sources told FootballScoop, has already arrived to begin work at Utah and has helped shape the program’s roster for the coming 2026 season; he’s helped the Utes both retain numerous key players from their 2025 squad as well as to sign 15 players via the NCAA Transfer Portal.
Notable additions for the Utes include prized offensive tackle Cedric Jefferson, a national championship-winning starter on Montana State’s 2025 Football Championship Subdivision team who picked the Utes over multiple Power Conference offers that included the University of Kentucky and new head coach Will Stein.
Utah also landed former Oklahoma safety Marcus Wimberly as well as four-star wide receiver Braden Pegen from Utah State.
The Scalley era of Utah Utes football is set to kick off Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, against FCS program Idaho at home inside Rice-Eccles Stadium. Utah then hosts an intrasectional clash against Southeastern Conference program Arkansas, led by first-year coach Ryan Silverfield, nine days later.