What’s top of mind for Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley as he begins fall camp?
The same things that were at the forefront in spring camp, namely the defensive tackle and cornerback positions.
Senior Aliki Vimahi and sophomore Dallas Vakalahi will start up front for the Utes, with redshirt sophomore Jonah Lea’ea filling in the DT3 spot. Aside from that, there’s going to be a lot of freshmen in the mix for rotation time, including Karson Kaufusi, Sione Motuapuaka, LSU transfer Dilan Battle, Pupu Sepulona and Semi Taulanga
“Good to have a few new tackles, Dilan Battle transferring from LSU, Pupu Sepulona, Semi Taulangam,” Scalley this week. “So those bodies will help out a lot in the depth category. Now it’s just a matter of developing them and seeing if they can play right away.”
“One thing we can do a better job of is taking the football away. If there’s a knock on last year’s defense is we did not create enough takeaways and that’s something that will help out the offense tremendously.”
— Utah coach Kyle Whittingham
It’s certainly not ideal to have rotation players up front that have no collegiate experience, but the Utes are working with what they have. The players have done their part this summer in the weight room, packing on the pounds, and now it’s all about continuing to learn the defense and proving that they belong in the defensive tackle rotation.
“The good thing is we’re not having to do much physically with them. Their weight’s where it needs to be, it’s just learn the defense,” Scalley said.
Additionally, Utah needs to shore up a starting cornerback spot — Smith Snowden has locked down his spot at nickel and Scooby Davis on the outside — and decide who will be lining up opposite Logan Fano as the Utes’ starting defensive end.
Aside from position battles and integrating new faces into Scalley’s defensive scheme, the overarching message from Utah’s coach-in-waiting is simple and consistent to what he was preaching in the spring — the Ute defense needs to cause more “havoc plays” and be better at stopping the run.
“One thing we can do a better job of is taking the football away,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “If there’s a knock on last year’s defense is we did not create enough takeaways and that’s something that will help out the offense tremendously.”
In 2024, Utah took the ball away 18 times — tied for No. 58 in the nation — but not up to par with its 2022 Pac-12 championship-winning season, where the Utes generated 24 turnovers.
“I felt like havoc plays were a strong emphasis in spring. I felt like we did a really good job of it,” Scalley said. “The takeaways were really good. That’s got to continue in fall camp.”
Scalley said that the most common turnovers forced in Big 12 play were interceptions, followed by fumbles forced by the second man to the ball.
Utah’s defensive coordinator has incorporated those scenarios in practices as much as possible.
“There’s certain aspects of takeaways that you can practice — zone drops, catching a football, including footballs in your drill work, and then a focus on second guy in how to strip the ball, how to take care of the ball, how to go down, how to recover a ball in traffic versus how to recover a ball in space,” Scalley said.
“And so those are the things that we have to do a really good job of — the things that you can practice in terms of takeaways, you better be practicing and I feel like we’re doing a good job of that.”
The second priority for the Utes is stopping the run, a hallmark of Utah’s defense. Statistically, Utah gave up 129.4 yards per game — No. 35 in the nation — but too often in the clutch, opposing players got loose for key gains.
“Some of it was technique, some of it was missed tackles,” Scalley said. “So again, we got to be able to tackle better, not throwing shoulders, making sure that we understand proper tackling technique and then proper technique in maintaining gaps.
“A bunch of the big hitters (runs) were guys not maintaining their gaps and that’s just an alignment assignment deal.”
This year, the Utes are trying to hit that elite level of run defense that they’ve achieved in the past.
“It’s been a big part of what we’re trying to do and all you guys know Utah football, right? No. 1 thing, No. 1 objective is to stop the run,” defensive ends coach Lewis Powell said.
An emphasis was put on getting bigger along the defensive front this season, especially for the defensive ends. Logan Fano is up to 265 pounds, defensive ends coach Powell said. Kash Dillon is now at 255 pounds, while others like Washington transfer Lance Holtzclaw have also gained weight.
“Getting bigger and just being more stout was a point of emphasis for us,” Powell said. “So every single one has gained a lot of weight and hoping that we’ll be stout in the run and forcing guys to pass the ball so we can get after the quarterback.”
Utah’s defense is getting a lot of practice dealing with one aspect of the run game — the quarterback run — thanks to dual-threat signal-caller Devon Dampier.
“Athletic quarterbacks just cause issues, particularly when you’re going to use them in a dedicated quarterback run game,” Scalled said. “It’s one thing for him to just pull it on his own, escape the pocket, things break down and he’s able to make plays just with his legs on his own.”
“But when there’s a dedicated run package that you as a defensive coordinator really have to focus on, OK, how are we going to add a guy in the box? How are we going to take care of the quarterback in the run game? It really forces you to practice that.”
While being Utah’s next head coach is on the horizon for the longtime Whittingham assistant, as of now, Scalley’s full focus is on elevating his defense as the Utes head into their second year in the Big 12 Conference.
“The defense has been very consistent, something that you can count on from year to year,” Whittingham said. “I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a real down year defensively. And so defense just needs to do what they’ve been doing for a lot of years.”
