This spring, Rabbit Evans was back out on the field, making plays and enjoying every minute in his return to football.
Last season, the Utah safety missed the first two games of the year before making his season debut in the Utes’ road game against Wyoming. As quickly as his season began, though, it was over, as he played just six snaps before suffering a season-ending injury.
Evans, who was supposed to start at safety for Utah in 2025, was instead relegated to watching the season from the sidelines.
“Just being away from my teammates,” Evans said about the toughest part of missing the 2025 season. “A little bit, I had like a little mental battle, but other than that though, just being away from the guys, being away from just playing the game I love. That was really the hardest part for real.”
One silver lining to a tough situation for Evans was getting to view the game from a different angle and perspective, which led to the game slowing down even more for him.
“When I was out the only thing I could do was watch football, so I was able to learn a lot and just learn different things, learn different schemes and understand the defense a lot more. It was a blessing in disguise,” Evans said.
Now back for his graduate senior year at Utah, the Blinn College transfer is ready to be playing football again, and for the first time in his career, should be the Utes’ full-time starter at strong safety.
Evans arrived at Utah ahead of the 2024 season after a successful junior college career and immediately made inroads in Morgan Scalley’s defense, starting in two of Utah’s first seven games.
As he grew more and more comfortable with Scalley’s scheme, Evans began to stand out, and by the end of that season, he was entrenched as the starter at strong safety.
He ended the 2024 season as one of Utah’s highest-graded defenders with a Pro Football Focus grade of 73.1 and was of the Utes’ best defenders in coverage. He finished the year with 34 tackles and a pass breakup.
Though his momentum from the end of the season and a good spring camp was halted by the injury in 2025, after an offseason of recovery and film study, Evans made an impression during Utah’s spring camp this year and should be the Utes’ starting strong safety.
“Just being out here with the guys, I’m just blessed to be able to come out here again, have fun. I missed it a lot, so I’m excited being back. It’s been good,” Evans said.
New safeties coach Derrick Odum was impressed with the level of Evans’ play this spring and how he’s looked since recovering from the injury.
“Another guy that’s really improved a bunch from the beginning to where we are now,” Odum said. “I think with the injury he had, the biggest thing was just getting out there and moving again and playing at a high level that way, physically.
“But now that he’s done that recently, the biggest thing was conditioning, like playing where you’re not gassed after a couple of plays. Your play tends to suffer because you’re tired and you can’t think properly, you can’t move like you want to. And so once we got through that initially, another guy that’s done a really nice job of making plays, flying around, he’s extremely physical. And again, going through this summer, he’ll even get his body back even more so from the injury.”
Evans’ potential backfield starting mate, free safety Jackson Bennee, has learned a lot from him.
“His game has helped me a lot,” Bennee said. “I’ve learned a lot from Rab. His footwork is awesome. He’s super physical. It’s just good to see him back. I can’t imagine what an injury like that would do to you, not only physically, just mentally. That’s just a hard thing to go through, so he’s had a great attitude the whole time.”
Last season, Bennee started the year at cornerback but took over the starting safety role for the rest of the year after Evans’ injury and a season-ending injury to Nate Ritchie the last weekend of September.
Though Bennee had his ups and downs at times in 2025, especially tackling, he was one of Utah’s best ballhawks, snagging four interceptions and breaking up nine passes.
Entering 2026, he’s more comfortable at the position at the college level.
“Just this year, right as January 1st hit, I just felt a lot more confident out there, the game kind of slowed down for me and being able to recognize formation — I still need to be better at that — but communicating and whatnot, my game could always improve, but I do feel more confident for sure,” Bennee said.
Behind those two, Utah has a veteran who has started 14 games in senior Ritchie and an up-and-comer in Nate Tilmon, who turned heads this spring.
Tilmon played in 11 games with 184 defensive snaps, totaling 17 tackles and a snap in his freshman year. Players usually see the biggest leap from their freshman to sophomore season, and Utah’s coaches have seen improvement from Tilmon this spring.
“He’s really improved a great deal. His confidence has gone through the roof and he’s playing faster, he’s playing more confident, he’s around the ball a lot,” Odum said.
“Out of that group, I think he’s really made the biggest strides from where we started. Really excited about what he’s done up to this point. Now he’s starting to finish off spring and carry that into the summer and all the things that go with that, but to this point, I’m really pleased with what he’s done so far.”
After an injury-ravaged season last year, Utah’s safety group is shaping up to potentially be the strength of the team in 2026.
“Having Rabbit back is awesome. I mean, we have a solid core, solid group, me, Bennee, Tilly, and we got a bunch of other guys coming in, stepping up,” Ritchie said.
“I mean, it’s just a lot of talent and it’s a lot of fun to be around. We get to bounce off each other and learn from each other.”