By Jackson Posey | Sports Editor
As controversy swirls around the Baylor athletics department, a formidable foe looms on the field.
No. 13 Utah (7-2, 4-2 Big 12) will be Baylor’s (5-4, 3-3 Big 12) highest-ranked opponent this season. The Utes rank third in the Big 12 and still have an outside shot at a College Football Playoff berth.
The Bears, meanwhile, are coming off a bye week and a resounding victory over UCF on homecoming weekend. They’ll look to secure bowl eligibility by winning their first home game over a ranked opponent since Caleb Williams was at Oklahoma.
The Baylor Lariat spoke with John Leone, Sports Editor at The Daily Utah Chronicle, to find out more about the Utes.
Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
This has been a big bounce-back season for Utah after missing a bowl game last year. What changed?
From the beginning of the year, everyone knew it was going to be a bounce-back year. Last year was such a fluke year with injuries, and it’s easy to blame injuries for a bad year, but I think Utah’s 2024 season was genuinely one of the craziest injury-riddled seasons I’ve ever seen in my life, probably the most. The Utes were on their fifth-string quarterback the last couple of weeks, and by then I think everyone had kind of given up on it.
In the offseason, we kind of figured things out. We brought in offensive coordinator Jason Beck, QB Devon Dampier, RB NaQuari Rogers and WR Ryan Davis, all from New Mexico. … I think half of our team this year came from the transfer portal. Just balancing out the things that went wrong in 2024, everyone kind of knew, “OK, Utah will be back to where they were before.”
Dave Aranda has compared the Beck-Dampier offense to the Wing-T. Whatever it is, it’s working — the Utes are scoring 39.6 points per game, including 98 the past two weeks. How are they doing it?
It’s certainly a style of offense that I’ve never seen at Utah before, and I don’t think anyone in the history of Utah football has seen anything quite like it. Utah uses six offensive linemen, like, over 40% of the time, and I think second-highest in the Power Four is under 10%. So it’s definitely a unique style of offense. You’ll see all that chunkage come in on short-yardage situations.
The run game has been amazing. In games where we haven’t turned the ball over, we’ve pretty much run away with every single game. The main thing that holds back the offense is if Dampier has an off day throwing, or if we shoot ourselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers.
Utah is also ranked top-10 in scoring defense right now, led by John Henry Daley’s 9.5 sacks. What have you seen out of that unit?
Defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley played at Utah, grew up a five-minute drew from campus, so he’s been around the program for a long time. He really is one of the best defensive coordinators in the country. He’s the head coach in waiting after Kyle Wittingham retires — when that will be is still unknown, Wittingham does not like to disclose that information. But Scalley knows his way around a defense, and he’s been called a mastermind by a lot of the players this year.
John Henry Daley, that dude’s legit. His get-off on the snap is something I haven’t seen at Utah in a long time, and I think he definitely has the potential and the ability to play in the NFL when it’s all said and done. Opposite side of him is Logan Fano, who’s a good, explosive defensive end. He doesn’t have the sack numbers, but he’s good against the run.
(Some other players to watch, according to Leone: DT Jonah Lea’ea, LB Lander Barton, LB Johnathan Hall, CB Smith Snowden.)
What’s your score prediction?
It’s going to be tough for Baylor’s defense to keep up. I’m going to say Utah 35, Baylor 20.
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Baylor and Utah will kick off at 6 p.m. Saturday at McLane Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
