Editor’s note: First of a two-part conversation with Utah athletic director Mark Harlan.
In one of his first interviews since his postgame comments following the BYU-Utah football game, Utah athletic director Mark Harlan addressed his actions the night of Nov. 9 at Rice-Eccles Stadium, including his apologies to BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe, BYU football coach Kalani Sitake and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark.
Harlan made headlines following Utah’s 22-21 loss to then-No. 9 BYU after going onto the field postgame to confront the referees, then heading to the postgame media pulpit.
Much of the controversy stemmed from the game’s ending and a timeout call and defensive holding call that extended the Cougars’ final drive that ultimately led to a game-winning field goal.
Replays — especially fan-shot videos on social media (ESPN had just one replay of the called hold from a zoomed-out angle) would confirm that the referees made the right call on the defensive holding sequence, but in the heat of the moment, Harlan stepped into the press conference room and delivered a 30-second soundbite that became the latest chapter in the storied rivalry.
“I’ve been an athletic director for 12 years. This game was absolutely stolen from us,” Harlan said. “We were excited about being in the Big 12, but tonight, I am not. We won this game. Someone else stole it from us. Very disappointed. I will talk to the (Big 12 Conference) commissioner. This was not fair to our team. I’m disgusted by the professionalism of the officiating crew tonight.”
The next day, the Big 12 publicly reprimanded Harlan and fined him $40,000.
Two months later, Harlan reflected on his actions that night.
“I think as we talk about last season, just like Kyle (Whittingham) would say, there’s things that they need to improve in as we head into the next year, I would say the same of myself,” Harlan said. “I think that night, obviously, I reacted emotionally and my frustrations were expressed in a way that was not worthy of a true leader of a program of this stature. And certainly as any leader should, you learn and grow from those experiences.”
The day after his postgame rant, Harlan reached out to both Holmoe and Sitake to apologize for his comments.
“Reflecting, I felt like it took away from their victory and the hard-earned victory of those student-athletes in that program,” Harlan said.
Harlan also reached out to Big 12 commissioner Yormark to apologize.
“Bringing the Big 12 and diminishing our participation in the Big 12 was, in my view, inappropriate, as my statement said immediately after the game. I don’t want at all anyone to think that Utah’s participation in the Big 12 isn’t something that we’re proud of and frankly, we’re honored to be competing,” Harlan said.
“So as I said, you learn and grow as I ask our student-athletes and staff to do in these situations. I was not a great example of that, but certainly I feel that I have learned from it and look forward to continuing this great rivalry in the right way.”
In an exclusive interview with the Deseret News on Tuesday, Harlan touched on numerous topics, including Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham’s return, revenue sharing, the transfer portal, NIL and the state of Utah men’s basketball, among other topics.
Kyle Whittingham’s return
As the final month of the 2024 regular season wound down, speculation regarding Whittingham’s future was at an all-time high.
Ahead of the Utes’ final game at UCF, Whittingham said that his decision would be based on “what’s best for the program, not what’s best for me.”
“It’ll be completely determined on how I feel this program is best served going forward,” he said.
After taking some days to decompress after enduring just the third losing season in his career, Whittingham met with Harlan and university president Taylor Randall and informed them that he would return for his 21st season as Utah’s head coach.
“Kyle made it clear that he had the energy, the passion, and the strategy to come back and get the program back to obviously this historic level that he’s been able to attain for us,” Harlan said. “... Needless to say, I’m excited that he’s back. I’m excited that we’ve been able to retain the defensive staff under Coach Scalley’s leadership and of course Coach Beck and those coaches. And so the future’s bright.”
After two years of lackluster offense with Cam Rising missing significant time with injuries, Utah underwent a complete offensive overhaul after the season ended.
Offensive coordinator Jason Beck was hired, becoming the first new full-time play caller in five years, and Beck brought with him running backs coach Mark Atuaia and wide receivers coach Micah Simon.
Utah’s quarterback room (New Mexico’s Devon Dampier is the projected starter), running back room (Washington State’s Wayshawn Parker is the projected lead back) and wide receiver room (Utah State’s Otto Tia, New Mexico’s Ryan Davis and Mississippi State’s Creed Whittemore transferred in) will all look different in 2025.
Court rulings
College sports have essentially been flipped upside down by three court rulings.
The first ruling, in 2021, cleared the way for college athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness. The second ruling struck down the “year in residency” rule, where players had to sit out one year if they wanted to transfer. That rule was later softened to allow one transfer without sitting out, but in 2023, it was struck down altogether by a 14-day temporary restraining order in a West Virginia district court.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the NCAA in 2024 that made the “unlimited transfer” policy permanent.
“I thought the NCAA made a very reasonable attempt a few years ago to allow transfers to be more robust, particularly in sports that had more, maybe, I would call archaic rules to them,” Harlan said. “And where that ended up was you come in as a student-athlete, you can transfer once without sitting out a year in residency, and if you do it twice, you would have to sit out unless you were a grad student.
“Unfortunately, the court system didn’t believe that that was legal, so to speak. And so the NCAA had to abandon those rules. And through the court system where we are now, to your point, is students are able to transfer as many times as they like without serving a year in residency.”
Is this change here to stay?
“Until there is some type of a federal law that could include transferring — and that’s hard to imagine, but it’s something to ponder — we will not see a change in what the current system is. We can alter things like the transfer portal windows, which we saw this year. The spring portal that’s forthcoming is shorter than it was, but until then, we are going to have to live under these existing circumstances,” Harlan said.
Retaining players
When all is said and done, Utah’s 2025 football roster will consist of nearly 50% new players, between the transfer portal and high school recruiting class. That’s a big departure from previous years, and deals a blow to one of Utah’s big selling points under Whittingham, which was player development over three or four seasons.
“Four, five, six years ago before the advent of the portal, whenever that was, you might replace 25 guys out of 125 on your team. Now you’re replacing 45-plus,” Whittingham said in November. “And the culture, I don’t know if diluted is the right word, but before you had 100 guys teaching 25 guys how we do our thing and now it’s almost a 50/50 split, the new guys as opposed to the guys that have been in the program.”
Meanwhile, managing rosters has become a full-time job, which is why both football and men’s basketball hired general managers.
“It is very difficult to be able to manage rosters. And going back to my comments, you got to be real strategic about it,” Harlan said. “You have to create the best possible environment and you have to have strong NIL programming to be able to retain and recruit.”
Re-recruiting a football roster starts early — during the season — with Whittingham having conversations with players about their willingness to stay and their financial expectations.
“The days of waiting to the end of the season and having those conversations are somewhat over,” Harlan said. “Until tampering rules are enforced by the NCAA, which they’re not, you’ve got to be the ones in the ears of your students early.”
NIL
Harlan said that, through the Crimson Collective (Utah’s official NIL collective), Utah has been able to “double our output in player compensation.”
Utah was able to keep players like Spencer Fano and a number of key starters, too, with the exception of defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa (who transferred to BYU) and cornerback Cameron Calhoun (who transferred to Alabama).
“I look at this last year and by and large, we’ve been able to retain all the key players that we believe will lift us back to success in ‘25 and beyond,” Harlan said. “And we’ve been able to recruit elite athletes, some in their position group rated No. 1. That does not happen without great leadership in the football program, but also a very competitive, I would argue, highly competitive NIL structure that we have for football.”
Revenue sharing
The way athletes get compensated is going to change beginning in July, thanks to the third key court ruling — “House v. NCAA.”
The settlement has not been officially finalized, but it clears the way for universities to directly pay athletes starting in July. Schools will be able to share up to $20.5 million with their athletes.
Harlan affirmed that Utah is “all-in” to distribute the maximum revenue sharing allowed.
“I’m very excited about the dramatic effect that it will have on our programs that’ll see even more revenue and funding going to student-athletes in multiple sports, football, basketball, and others,” Harlan said.
Nationwide, football and men’s basketball are expected to receive the vast majority of the available revenue-sharing money.
“Rest assured that on the sports that are generating revenue, they’re going to be high on the list of those that receive the revenue,” Harlan said.
Harlan does feel that Utah is in a “very good position” as revenue sharing kicks off in just six months.
“Obviously on first breath it’s $20-plus million of revenue that we would normally be supporting operationally our programs, and that would include scholarships, but now it’s going to be directed to them, which I think is a great thing,” Harlan said.
“So we’ve made adjustments within the organization. We’ve hired a chief revenue officer (Patrick Nowlin) to really lead all our programming. We’ve enhanced our development team to really work with donors in a top way. Speaking of that, we’re coming off the best year-end fundraising drive in the history of the department. … We have more donors than we’ve ever had in the history of the athletic department, and frankly, we’re coming off a year that we’ve raised more money.
“So we have a lot of positive things. We’re going to have to continue to lean on our supporters, be as creative as we can to make sure that we’re just moving forward in this and we’re not going to step back at all under this new day.”
Additional revenue
Harlan and the athletic department are looking for avenues for additional revenue wherever possible, including selling advertisement space on the Huntsman Center floor to University of Utah Health this season.
“We have other opportunities like that we’re looking at. We know expanding our donor base, which we’ve been able to do over these last years, is a part of the process, but also looking creatively at other things that we just haven’t thought of before,” Harlan said.
“I think we really need to lean in on licensing. We need to improve our outreach in that regard. And other opportunities that we just didn’t think of. The NCAA is looking at loosening rules on a lot of different activities that you can do in the revenue space. And when those things happen, we want to be on the forefront of being able to do that. But it is a large portion of my time and my team’s time to make sure that we’re gathering the resources that we need to be at our very best.”
In addition to revenue sharing — each school will be limited to the maximum of $20.5 million across the board — players will continue to have NIL opportunities.
“Also, layered over (revenue sharing), comprehensive true NIL, that will still be allowed. And we know there’s great companies and corporations and individuals in the community in the (Salt Lake) valley and the state and beyond that want to continue to assist us as they have been for so many years,” Harlan said.
