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When Utah’s captains for the 2025 season were released last week, one name stood out.
Logan Fano, Spencer Fano and Lander Barton were easy predictions for captaincy, but the inclusion of Jaren Kump was a welcome surprise.
The 6-foot-6, 315-pound Riverton native, who has been at Utah long enough to be working on his master’s degree in Health & Kinesiology, is entering his fifth season as a Ute.
For the Herriman High graduate, being named one of Utah’s four captains by his teammates is a dream come true.
“It’s the biggest honor that honestly I can think of. I’m so fortunate, I would say. So fortunate that my teammates see me as a guy who’s essentially able to fulfill that role as a captain,” Kump said. “So I’m so honored by that, to be put in this position, and so I’m going to do everything I can to earn it every single day.”
The fact that four of Utah’s five starting offensive linemen (Fano, Kump, Caleb Lomu and Michael Mokofisi) were named to the 12-person leadership council speaks volumes about how this team views the players up front.
Kump is one of the longest-tenured players on the roster, beginning his Utah career in 2020. He started all five games of the pandemic-shortened season at right tackle, then started the first four of 2021 before suffering a season-ending injury.
In 2022, he didn’t earn the starting job but played 302 snaps, and stuck with the team. By 2023, he started six games and played in all 13 games, mostly seeing time at center.
In 2024, he was the full-time starter at the center position, earning a grade of 67.2 by Pro Football Focus for the season.
This season, offensive line coach Jim Harding has challenged him to be more consistent with his physicality and on-field communication.
“He’s got to be consistent with his physicality. We talked about that (at the start of fall camp), had a quick individual meeting of things that they need to improve on,” Harding said.
“He’s got to be clear and concise and confident in how he’s directing the calls up front, and I thought he got better at that in the spring and he’s got to continue to do that this fall to be physical and be confident in his communication.”
In his final year of college football, he’ll be part of an offensive line that has all five returning starters back and is one of the most heralded lines in college football this preseason.
On some level, it’s nice to be acknowledged, but Kump and the rest of the offensive line know that they need to prove it on the field.
“We’re really flattered for all the talk, all the positive talk,” Kump said. “In reality, our attitude as an O-line is that we haven’t proved anything.
“The season hasn’t even started. Preseason accolades in reality don’t mean anything. No one’s going to remember those,” he continud. “So our mentality, our attitude, is that we haven’t proved anything. … We’re working every single day to be able to put us in a position to able to do that.”
As an elder statesman of this year’s team, Kump’s responsibility is to make sure that the new players, which comprise almost 50% of the 2025 roster, know and are entrenched in Utah’s culture.
“One thing I do love is that everyone’s starting to buy in. All the new guys, the older guys, I think are really helping reestablish what our standard is every single day in practice and in our workouts,” Kump said. “And I think the new guys are really starting to buy in and we’re really coming together. I’m really excited. I’m so excited for this team.”
As the center, one of Kump’s primary tasks is having excellent chemistry and communication with the quarterback. New signal-caller Devon Dampier knows how important that relationship is, and immediately went to work to build it, including running player-led practices in the summer and taking his offensive line out to eat.
“I freaking love the dude. He’s not only an outstanding quarterback, he’s an outstanding teammate,” Kump said.
That’s only motivated the offensive line that much more to be able to protect their most important player.
“He’s taking us out to eat, I don’t know how many times, as an entire offensive line. So he’s a team guy. He’s a guy that’s really here for the boys and he’s an awesome addition to the locker room, not only the locker room, but the offense as well,” Kump said.
“He’s been really awesome with us. So that’s going to help us just give that half-a-second-longer protection, knowing that our guy behind us really takes care of us. We’re going to try and take care of him.”
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