Eric Kjar leaving powerhouse Corner Canyon to become Weber State’s next head coach

When Corner Canyon High won the 6A state championship last month, it was the seventh of Eric Kjar’s head coaching career — all in the past 14 years.

He’s now one title shy of the state record held by some of the most legendary coaches in state history: Skyline’s Roger Dupaix, Juan Diego’s John Colosimo and Beaver’s Al Marshall.

That record pursuit is now over, though.

After 17 years as a high school football head coach in Utah, Kjar is moving on to the college game after signing a four-year contract to become Weber State’s new head football coach. He’ll be formally introduced at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

Kjar knows the landscape of high school football in Utah as well as anyone and says he’ll tap into that knowledge immediately in recruiting at Weber State.

“That will be a huge focus for me. I mean, I think I know the state better than anybody, especially just talent across the board and seeing it firsthand so closely. We’re going to recruit hard in-state. I know every coach kind of says it, but we’re going to actually do it,” Kjar told the Deseret News on Monday Night.

This will be Kjar’s last week as a teacher at Corner Canyon High School before he turns all his attention to Weber State and roster construction for the 2026 season.

It’s the end of an era, for sure.

“It’s good, but it’s sad too, just because I’m going to miss it. I love that place. I love all the kids that were there. It’s been amazing,” Kjar told the Deseret News.

A Kemmerer, Wyoming, native, Kjar always hoped an opportunity would open up in the college game for him, but he never actively pursued it, as he loved coaching his own kids in high school so much. His youngest son, Carter, will be a senior next year, and many wondered if Kjar would wait until after he graduated to chase that next opportunity.

He was encouraged, however, to apply for the vacant Weber State job and the timing was realistically only one year off from being perfect.

“Plus, who knows when that’s going to open up again, and I’m basically a year away from where I would look at more of that stuff. And in talking with my family, just felt like it was the right time, and Weber is just such a good job and I think you can win and be really good there,” said Kjar. “I think it’s surrounded in a good area by a lot of talent in Utah. So it just made a ton of sense for me and at this time to try to make that jump.”

Weber State fired head coach Mickey Mental back on Nov. 10 after three years with the program, after taking over for Jay Hill in 2020. He finished with a 13-20 record.

After Mental was fired, Weber State split its final two games under interim coach Brent Myers to finish the season with a 4-8 record.

Weber State’s new coach only lost 10 games total in nine seasons at Corner Canyon, finishing with a staggering 112-10 record with the Chargers and six state titles. Prior to that, he spent eight successful years at Jordan, with a 69-29 record and one state championship.

“It’s exciting, for sure, just the process of everything, all the coaches and people that I’ve been around and just learning a ton,” Kjar said. “I think if you really try to improve and just try to work your butt off, I think a lot of good things can happen for you always. It’s been a fun ride, all the high school stuff’s been amazing. I have learned so much and grown a ton.”

Kjar’s oldest son, Noah Kjar, was a sophomore on this year’s Weber State team, but missed over half the season after tearing his ACL on Sept. 23.

Noah flourished while playing for his dad at Corner Canyon from 2017 to 2020, finishing with 4,935 career receiving yards and 50 touchdowns.

Kjar’s other son, Tate, was a freshman at Utah State this year, and then Carter Kjar is currently a junior at Corner Canyon.

During Kjar’s 17 years as a high school football coach in Utah, he developed a reputation as a quarterback whisper. Two of his former QBs are in the NFL and both were first-round draft picks — Zach Wilson and Jaxson Dart.

Two weeks ago while talking Corner Canyon football on the Canyons School District podcast, Dart called Kjar a “schematic mastermind.”

“You want to be a part of a culture, a part of an environment where everybody’s going to push each other to be the best that they can be,” Dart said. “And I think that Coach Kjar does an amazing job at bringing that mindset each and every day to his players and to his coaching staff.”

During those 17 seasons, Kjar’s quarterbacks combined for 63,208 yards and 660 touchdowns.

Kjar takes over a Weber State team with plenty of uncertainty in the QB room. Redshirt sophomore Jackson Gilkey started the first five games before breaking his fibula and missing the rest of the season. Dijon Jennings and Kingston Tisdell combined to finish the season, ending the year with just seven total touchdowns between them.

Addressing the QB room will be one of Kjar’s top priorities.

In speaking with the Deseret News on Monday night, Kjar said, “Oh boy, I’m freaking neck deep in it already.”

Making the jump from high school head coach straight to college head coach at the FBS or FCS level is extremely rare.

Trent Dilfer made the jump in 2022, going from Lipscomb Academy in Nashville to UAB. More locally, former Bishop Gorman coach Tony Sanchez made the jump straight to UNLV in 2015 and spent five years as coach before being fired after a 20-40 record.

A few others were Bob Commings (Iowa, 1974), Gerry Faust (Notre Dame, 1981) and Todd Doge (North Texas, 2007).

There are several other examples of former high school head coaches who eventually became college head coaches after first serving as a college assistant. Most notably, current Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire coached high school football in Texas for 14 years and won three state championships before he was hired by Baylor to be an assistant coach.

McGuire spent five years at Baylor before making the jump to Texas Tech as head coach.

As excited as Kjar is to make this jump, he’s always been very task-oriented and the last thing he’s worried about is his career trajectory. He’ll just keep working the long, hard hours like he did at Corner Canyon in building a nationally-recognized high school football program.

“I push that envelope pretty hard, anyway, from a driven standpoint. So that could be pretty similar. It’s just going to be different,” he said. “It’s going to be managing the portal, managing recruiting, managing staff, managing current roster, seeing where we can make changes, see where we can improve, getting our recruiting board in order and all those types of things.

“It’s going to be more of that,” Kjar continued. “I’m not going to be doing driver’s ed. I’m not going to be coaching track. I’m not going to be creating daily workouts for all our kids and all that kind of stuff. It’s just going to be a different deal.”

With Kjar’s departure, one of the top high school coaching jobs in the state is now vacant, but it comes with massive shoes to fill, as Kjar guided Corner Canyon to the past eight championship games. He’s one title-game appearance shy of a remarkable nine-straight that Dupaix guided Skyline to from 1995 to 2003.

Eric Kjar’s legacy of standout QBs