Five days ago when the Utah Utes football program hired Kevin McGiven to be its next offensive coordinator, there was a prevailing belief that he would also serve as quarterbacks coach.
Such is a common arrangement on coaching staffs, but as it turns out, that reportedly won’t be the case.
On Thursday evening, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Utah will be hiring Ryan Gunderson to be quarterbacks coach, meaning McGiven won’t be coaching a position group.
Weirdly, Gunderson and McGiven have both had long stints at Oregon State (Gunderson’s alma mater) and San Jose State in the relative recent past, but were only together for a short time at San Jose State in 2018 (new Utah safeties coach Derrick Odum was also on that staff).
In addition to stops at Oregon State and San Jose State, the 41-year-old Gunderson was the director of player personnel at Nebraska from 2015-2016 and was the quarterbacks coach at UCLA from 2021-2023.
Gunderson is primed to have a loaded quarterback room at Utah, led by Devon Dampier and Byrd Ficklin, both of whom were excellent for the Utes in 2024.
While new Utah coach Morgan Scalley still has to fill out his coaching staff with analysts, graduate assistants and other similar positions, the addition of Gunderson should be the completion of his primary staff.