After the first day of fall camp, Devon Dampier stepped into the media scrum on Utah’s practice field with a big smile.
“Good to be back, huh?” he said.
Utah’s starting quarterback is healthy and happy as the Utes gear up for the 2026 season, a stark difference from last season.
Dampier spent much of last season dealing with a sports hernia, which he had to have offseason surgery to fix, and an ankle injury, which didn’t allow him to play at his best.
“I’ve never had an injury like that so that was the first time where I felt like I was going into games in my head like I can’t play how I normally play,” Dampier said at Big 12 media days.
After an eventful offseason that featured Kyle Whittingham stepping down, Morgan Scalley taking the reins, and offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who originally came with Dampier from New Mexico, joining Whittingham in Michigan, Dampier had options on where to play in 2026.
Ultimately, though, he trusted in Scalley’s vision for the program and wanted to finish what he started in Salt Lake City.
“Coming back to Utah after everything that went on and just being so welcoming, for one, my coaches meeting me in the airport (after surgery), just starting from there, that builds a lot of respect to me and a lot of loyalty,” Dampier said.
Utah, for its part, handsomely rewarded Dampier, and he’s turned into an advertising star, appearing in promotions for companies like Costa Vida and Ken Garff.
The money and the fame haven’t changed who Dampier is, or his work ethic. Utah’s quarterback was the one taking initiative throughout the entire summer to get the offense practicing together in a period where they could have taken time off.
“We’ve been working hard without the coaches here a lot, building culture without them. So for finally the coaches to be back and see how far we’ve come together as a team first practice, I thought it went well,” Dampier said.
Utah’s quarterback has a lot of expectations on him as he enters his second season captaining the Utes. Last year, playing through injuries, Dampier took a step forward in his game, throwing for 2,490 yards and 24 touchdowns with just five interceptions on a 63.5% completion rate. He added 835 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground.
Dampier is a big part of the reason that the Utes debuted at No. 21 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, even with a new head coach and new offensive coordinator. ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranked Dampier the No. 12 quarterback in college football, while Dampier was ranked the No. 22 signal-caller by The Athletic.
“I’m excited to see a fully healthy Devon Dampier,” Scalley said. “One of the best I’ve seen at throwing on the run, how accurate he is at throwing on the run. Coach McGiven and (quarterbacks coach Ryan) Gunderson have done a great job implementing the offense and getting him schooled up on things.”
Dampier and Beck were a perfect pairing dating back to their time at New Mexico, with Beck’s RPO offense perfectly fitting Dampier’s play style.
Now, for the first time in his collegiate career, Dampier has a different offensive coordinator, Utah State’s Kevin McGiven. In conversations with Dampier, McGiven outlined that the offense would be tailored to Dampier’s skillset instead of Dampier having to fit into a specific scheme.
McGiven has shown the ability to be adaptable over his previous stops, and his mentality is no different at Utah.
“I’m very comfortable. Mac G, he tells me all the time he wants to dedicate this offense to what he feels I do best. For us to just keep having conversations, we have days where we can get better, we have days where we take the good out of the practice and we just keep elevating the offense from there,” Dampier said.
“So I’m happy that he respects my talents and what I can do, so we can thrive as an offense.”
Scalley said that Utah’s offense under McGiven should look similar to fans who watched last year’s edition.
“Probably is very similar. Probably similar. You have formation of the boundary stuff. You have shifts, motions, the quarterback run game. And that’s a big reason why Devon and Byrd wanted to stay is because it was very similar,” Scalley said. “There’ll be some added wrinkles obviously. But yeah, I would say to the average fan, you’re sitting there going, okay, this is real similar.”
Dampier excels most when he’s running the run-pass option and is able to make plays with his feet, but there could be an uptick in the passing game this season with the receiver talent that Utah has.
Utah State transfer Braden Pegan (926 yards, five TDs) and San Jose State transfer Kyri Shoels (768 yards, two TDs) were the two big transfer portal additions for the Utes. Add in Larry Simmons, Creed Whittemore, Mississippi State transfer Ricky Johnson, Tobias Merriweather, Daidren Zipperer and Nate Johnson, and you get one of the deepest receiver rooms that Utah’s had in a while.
“Man, very exciting,” Dampier said about Utah’s receivers, noting that each receiver caught the ball during the opening day of fall camp.
“We have so many people that can get open. We could put them in different places. So it shows on the field that so many receivers caught the ball today, so many different ones. So yeah, shout out on their part.”
Last season, Dampier had one of the best offensive lines in school history protecting him and clearing the way for him when he ran. This year, there will be a new front five, but Dampier already has chemistry with many of the potential starters.
Zereoue Williams, Keith Olson, Solatoa Moea’i and Roger Alderman all played extensive snaps in Utah’s Las Vegas Bowl victory over Nebraska — Scalley’s first win as head coach — and got a good amount of snaps throughout the season thanks to Utah’s large margin of victory.
Alex Harrison, the projected starting center, played 143 snaps last season, and transfer Cedric Jefferson started for FCS national champion Montana State.
There’s lots of experience in the room, aside from five-star freshman Kelvin Obot, but now the challenge is stepping up to a full-time starting role.
Dampier, who spent a lot of time with the offensive line in the offseason, saw their growth while working with strength coach Steve Saunders. Many of the linemen added five or 10 pounds of muscle.
“For them to have that transformation just in the summer, man, now they get to showcase it out here and be at their best,” Dampier said.
Dampier isn’t shy about Utah’s goal, which is winning the Big 12 championship in Scalley’s first year. He’s worked with McGiven and Gunderson on improving the mental side of his game — reading the defense pre-snap and going through his post-snap progressions.
He’s rearing to lead Utah’s offense in its Sept. 3 opener against Idaho, but first, he’s taking each day in fall camp to continually improve.
“I love football. At the end of the day, everyone out here, we love football. We all signed up for this. I’ve never heard of an easy fall camp, so we kind of know what to expect when we’re here,” Dampier said.
“And we just go about it where you love each other. We’re such a bonded team that being out here is fun. It’s not taxing. It doesn’t feel like we’re being forced to be dragged out here. Everyone in this building knows that we have big plans ahead. We just talked about it yesterday, how we want to win a Big 12 championship. So just with that thought process, yeah, we got to do it every day.”
