Utah center Alex Harrison has heard all of the talk about the Utes’ new offensive line.
Utah is replacing all five starters from a sensational unit that helped the Utes set school records in 2025. The tackles from that line, Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu, were both selected in the first round of the NFL draft. The other starters — Jaren Kump, Tanoa Togiai and Michael Mokofisi — all either signed NFL free agent or minicamp deals or worked out for NFL teams.
Replacing those five starters is going to be a tough task for the Utes, but the members of the 2026 offensive line are frankly tired of hearing about it.
“It’s really fun for us because if you look, I can’t remember who it was, was it Phil Steele or one of the social media traps you get into, I don’t think we were in the top 50 O-lines in the country. It’s one of those things where it’s like, great,” Harrison said.
“I love the fact that nobody believes in us. I love the fact that everyone doubts us. Bring it on. I just can’t wait because I think we’ll show a lot of people this year.”
That’s exactly the mentality head coach Morgan Scalley wants the big guys up front to have throughout fall camp.
“This is a group that all they’ve heard since the season ended was, ‘How are you going to replace these guys? How are you going to replace these guys?’ And if I’m them, I have the same mindset. I’m motivated,” Scalley said.
“It’s their opportunity to step up, and the way things are looking, I’m very, very pleased with where we’re at, and we just want to continue to fly under the radar and show up on game day.”
New offensive line coach Jordan Gross comes to Utah after an 11-season NFL career with the Carolina Panthers that included three Pro Bowls and a first-team All-Pro season.
After retiring in 2013, he was a color analyst on the Panthers’ radio broadcasts before taking the leap into coaching in 2022, when he became head coach of his high school alma mater in Fruitland, Idaho.
When Scalley had to hire a new offensive line coach after Jim Harding went with Kyle Whittingham to Michigan, he had Gross in mind.
“When Morgan called me, he was very clear that it wasn’t just conversations. He said, ‘You’re my guy. I want you to do this job,” Gross said in March.
Gross’s NFL experience has proved especially helpful for his players, and he’s able to get down and demonstrate some of the technique that powered his pro football career.
While he’s significantly down from his playing weight, when he’s in the moment and teaching, he looks like he still belongs in the NFL.
“The experience and the ways he’s helped me, it’s just different ways to think about the game, different ways to use technique,” Harrison said. “Just the little things that I think he used throughout his career that, I mean, 10-plus years in the NFL, you really can’t beat the experience that he brings.
“It’s really hands-on. He can show you. He can still explain what he means by using his hands and his body.”
As Gross began his first fall camp last week, the biggest thing he noticed was how many of his players got stronger and gained weight over the summer while working with new strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders.
Quarterback Devon Dampier said a lot of the offensive linemen lost “five, 10 pounds of fat and then also gained like 10, 15 pounds of muscle.” Across the board, every offensive lineman gained good muscle, which was part of Gross’ plan.
“We want everybody as big as humanly possible to still be able to move and play your position,” Gross said. “So what was nice about witnessing the summer program was that those big guys were moving constantly, dynamically and doing cardio stuff, pushing things.
“It’s not as if the goal was just to sit around and eat a bunch of steaks and get as big as we can.”
While the weight gained was mostly muscle and will greatly benefit each lineman this fall, there was an adjustment period for players at the start of fall camp as they get used to playing with their new frames.
“What I’ve witnessed early at camp was that the guys got to get used to that added weight, even though it’s muscular density and the body composition information says, ‘Man, this is the right thing that we’ve done with this weight gain,” Gross said.
“It just takes a little time to get used to moving around an extra 10 or 15 pounds.”
Though the offensive line put in work with Dampier all summer, it’s a different type of work going against a defensive line every day, especially when the pads go on.
As fall camp rolls along, players are going to get used to the extra weight and get in game shape well before the Utes’ Sept. 3 opener vs. Idaho arrives.
Utah doesn’t need the offensive line to match the incredible play of last year’s team, but it needs the line to be at least serviceable. Ute coaches are confident in the group, and that’s why they didn’t feel a need to bring in a lot of players from the transfer portal.
Utah only nabbed two O-linemen out of the portal — Montana State’s Cedric Jefferson and Ohio State’s Isaiah Kema — and return a cast of players who have been in the program for a long time in Harrison, Zereoue Williams, Roger Alderman, Keith Olson and Solatoa Moea’i.
Each of those players played at least 130 snaps last season thanks to the Utes’ frequent large margins of victory, and Jefferson started at tackle for the FCS national champions.
There are only a few contenders for starting positions — or at least the rotation — who are relatively inexperienced, including five-star freshman Kelvin Obot, who was coached by Gross at Fruitland, and former Corner Canyon standout Isaiah Garcia who is now a junior but lost all of last season to an injury.
“The majority of us, we played a lot of football last year,” Harrison said. “Obviously there were a lot of good games last year that we got to get some time in, and a lot of it’s just understanding that those guys that were here last year set the standard and they were great.
“They did a lot of great things and now we have to continue that, but it’s also us becoming our own people, becoming our own unit and setting our own standards and just living up to what’s been done years before us.”
Gross is pushing a “starter mentality” in his room during fall camp. He says he has 10 players he feels comfortable taking into a Big 12 game (that number could shrink or grow depending on fall camp). He doesn’t have a hard date in mind to establish a starting five during fall camp, and he is already seeing great competition.
“That’s what you want as a position coach, is to have competition and guys pushing themselves in our own rooms so nobody’s comfortable, and when they’re hungry like that, I’m not comfortable because I know they have a mission that they’re on individually and as a unit,” Gross said.
Much of Utah’s season will hinge on how good the offensive line is. That’s something the players in Gross’ room are acutely aware of, and they are raring to prove the doubters wrong.