With the 2026 high school football season getting underway this week, here’s a look at some of the most intriguing storylines to watch throughout the season.
What does Eric Kjar departure mean for 6A?
When Eric Kjar announced he was accepting the Weber State head coaching job and leaving Corner Canyon last December, it sent shock waves through Utah high school football.
Kjar spent nine dominant seasons at Corner Canyon, the last seven as a 6A program. In those seven years, the Chargers played in the state championship every year, winning five titles. Their record was 89-9.
The rest of 6A was often playing for second place with as prepared as Kjar’s teams were in the big games.
Now, without Kjar roaming the sidelines, what’s next for the Corner Canyon dynasty?
New coach Casey Sutera, a former defensive coordinator with the school, hopes nothing changes as he knows the ins and outs of the program and is coming off a successful four-year run at Brighton.
Inevitably, though, what will change is Corner Canyon is no longer the destination program for transfer QBs without Kjar, who’s had two QBs drafted in the NFL first round in recent years. In fact, in his 17 years as a head coach at both Jordan and Corner Canyon, his QBs passed for a combined 63,208 yards and 660 touchdowns.
Jaxson Dart, Devin Brown and Helaman Casuga all transferred to Corner Canyon to be coached by Kjar. A Southern California standout QB was rumored to be close to transferring to Corner Canyon last winter, but that ended when Kjar departed.
The QB pipeline at Corner Canyon is now over.
The Chargers won plenty of times without transfer QBs, though, as Cole Hagen, Isaac Wilson and Bronson Evans all led Corner Canyon to titles.
The reality is, even when Corner Canyon was steamrolling through 6A and winning title after title, there were always great contenders headlined by Skyridge and Lone Peak. The trio will still be the favorites, but perhaps the door opens for a non-Region 3 team to win a state championship for the first time since Bingham won in 2017.
Or, bigger picture, a new dynasty emerges.
It wasn’t long ago that Bingham was always the team to beat in the state’s largest classification, with coach Dave Peck leading the program to five titles in nine years from 2006 to 2014. His former assistant, John Lambourne, then won two more titles in 2016 and 2017.
Northridge won three straight titles from 2000 to 2002, and then, prior to that, Skyline won five straight state championships.
Will we see the beginning of another shift in 2026, or will the Charger dynasty march on.
New 44-point mercy rule
The UHSAA is implementing a second mercy rule this season, and based on an analysis of last year’s games, it will likely impact 19% of games each week.
For decades, the UHSAA mercy rule has involved a running clock after halftime when a team leads by 35 points. In addition to that, beginning this season, if a team leads by 44 points after the third quarter, or at any point in the fourth quarter, the game ends.
Last season, in 79 of 683 games a team led by 44 or more points after three quarters. Another 53 games eventually reached a 44-point margin in the fourth quarter — a total of 132 games (19.3%) that would’ve ended early under the new rules.
San Juan, Milford and Ridgeline each won seven games a year ago that would’ve ended early with the new 44-point mercy rule, while South Summit, West and Corner Canyon were involved in six of those games.
The biggest long-term impacts of the rule change could be the UHSAA record book, for both single-season and career records. Some of the TD and yardage records held by Jaxson Dart, Jagger Nieves, Austin Kafentzis and Puka Nacua seemingly will be safe for a long, long time.
UHSAA to trim playoff brackets to 16 teams
One of the biggest changes the UHSAA executive committee approved in the offseason was to restore prestige to making the playoffs. A maximum of 16 teams will qualify for state tournament in all sports.
This won’t impact 6A, 3A, 2A and 1A football, but it will have a huge impact in 5A and 4A.
In recent years, the top 24 seeds in 5A and 4A qualified the playoffs, with the top eight seeds each receiving byes. It wasn’t uncommon for teams with one or two wins to qualify for the playoffs, creating watered-down brackets and a lot of blowouts in the early rounds.
Without the extra week of playoff games, all 6A, 5A and 4A teams will receive a first-round bye the week of Oct. 23. The small classifications will begin the playoffs that week like normal as none of the classifications are larger than 16 teams.
The RPI rankings will continue to determine which teams qualify for the playoffs.
There’s no recent example of a football seed higher than No. 16 making a deep run in the playoffs, but two years ago, Spanish Fork’s baseball team famously won the 5A state championship after an improbable run as a No. 20 seed.
Familiar faces returning to the sidelines
The offseason turnover rate for head coaches over the past decade has hovered between 20-25%, and this offseason was no different with 29 schools ushering in a new head coach for the 2026 season.
It’s the same number of changes as last season, which does include DeShawn Perkins taking over as head coach at Deer Creek.
The anomaly is the number of coaches who are returning with head coaching experience — including several with over a decade of experience.
Last season, only three of the new 29 coaches had prior head coaching experience, but this season, nine of 29 do.
The nine coaches with prior experience are: Corner Canyon’s Casey Sutera (fifth year), Granger’s Alema Te’o (15th year), West Jordan’s Francisco Llanos (third year), Brighton’s Josh Montzingo (11th year), Orem’s Andy Stokes (eighth year), Uintah’s Lance Burrell (fifth year), Pine View’s Ray Hosner (22nd year), Skyline’s Brandon Matich (20th year) and Bear River’s Craig Anhder (19th year).
Between the nine coaches, they have 99 seasons of prior head coaching experience.
Only Hosner is returning to the same school he previously coached, having spent 21 years at Pine View previously from 2002 to 2021.
Brandon Matich takes over as head coach at Skyline in what will be his 20th year as a head coach in Utah. He previously coached at Park City for four seasons, and then East for 15 seasons before taking last year off.
Class 4A had the most changes, with 12 of 29 programs experiencing a change in the offseason.
Notable names change schools in offseason
There’s no official transfer portal for Utah high school football, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t significant player movement from year to year.
Even though official transfer numbers from the UHSAA aren’t available yet, ahead of the 2025 season there were 245 athletes who transferred without a waiver, which meant they were forced to sit out the first five games of the season. The year before it was 219 athletes, so it’s likely there will be a similar number heading into the 2026 season.
Hundreds more transferred with a waiver, typically the result of a full family move, a divorce or documented bullying at the departing school. Those athletes with a waiver are eligible to play in the opening week of the season.
Among the transfers are notable athletes who were Deseret News all-staters a year ago, almost all of whom had their transfer waiver approved as well:
- OL: Sam Chien-Tauvao (Brighton to West)
- WR/DB: Eli Mortensen (Morgan to Skyridge)
- DB: Trey Harper (Brighton to Skyridge)
- DL: Major Stokes (Crimson Cliffs to Orem)
- LB: Fui Vakapuna (Corner Canyon to Timpview)
- DL: Krew Jones (Ridgeline to Orem)
- QB: Xavier Cocci (Skyline to Alta)
- TE: Max Cocci (Skyline to Alta)
- LB: Scooby Talau (West Jordan to Mountain Ridge)
- LB: Kyle Christiansen (Riverton to Mountain Ridge)
Timpview’s Vakapuna is the only athlete listed above whose transfer waiver was still pending with the UHSAA as of Wednesday morning. If it’s not approved, he’ll have to wait until Week 6 to begin play.
Among the notable out-of-state transfers are Davis quarterback Brodie Scheinberg and Davis receiver Jayden Taylor, both of whom transferred from St. John Bosco in California — and are approved to play Week 1.
Lone Peak transfer wide receiver Dillon Sykes from Rancho Cucamonga, California, has a pending status on his waiver as of Wednesday morning. He’s a Ute commit who recently moved to Utah to prepare for his early enrollment at the University of Utah.
How does the Class of 2027 measure up?
High school football recruiting rankings are broad-stroke evaluations that try and predict a player’s long-term future.
College football fans view them to project whether the future is bright or murky for their favorite team.
Viewed another way, the rankings can also reveal the overall talent in each state, and according to last year’s 247Sports rankings about the state of Utah, the Class of 2026 featured the most top-end talent since 2018.
Of Utah’s top 10 players from the class of 2026, 247Sports had eight out of those 10 ranked inside the top 25 nationally in their respective position groups — and the lowest was ranked 31st in his position group.
For perspective, in 2025 only four were ranked inside the top 25 and the lowest was 94th. In both 2024 and 2023, only three ranked inside the top 25 in their position group, and the low was 65 and 86, respectively.
According to the rankings, the 2018 class was Utah’s best in the past decade, with eight players inside the top 25, and the lowest ranked 27th. That class included Penei Sewell and Cameron Latu.
Heading into the new season, the class of 2027 is measuring up very well.
It currently doesn’t have the same high-end talent as the class of 2026, but with five players ranked inside the top 25 in their position group, and eight inside the top 40, there is no shortage of marquee athletes to watch on Friday nights this season.
The top three players in Utah according the 247Sports preseason rankings are Davis’ Bode Sparrow, Maple Mountain’s Uhila Wolfgramm and Orem’s Krew Jones.
These rankings are always evolving, so the quality of the 2027 class could inevitably go up or down.
Jaxson Dart is the perfect example of how drastic those changes can be. Prior to his senior season, 247 Sports had him ranked outside the top 1,500 recruits in the country. Upon transferring to Corner Canyon and putting up a banner season statistically, he jumped to 108 nationally and the No. 13 QB in the rankings. Now he’s the New York Giants’ starting quarterback.
Utah teams testing themselves nationally
Much of the nation’s high school football eyes will be on Utah this preseason during weeks 2, 3 and 4.
In each of those weeks, a Utah team takes on an out-of-state team ranked in the top 10 in the MaxPreps national top 25 rankings, including two such matchups in Week 2.
In Week 2, American Fork travels to No. 9 Mater Dei, California, while Lone Peak hosts No. 5 IMG Academy, Florida. Mater Dei last played a Utah team in 2023, beating Bingham 42-14.
Corner Canyon hosted IMG Academy two years ago, and won a thriller 35-34.
In Week 3, powerhouse Mater Dei faces another Utah team when it travels to defending 5A state championship Orem.
As for Lone Peak, the IMG Academy game in Week 2 is just an appetizer for Week 4 when it hosts No. 2 Bishop Gorman, Nevada, in a highly-anticipated rematch of last year’s shortened game.
Last year when these teams met in Las Vegas, Bishop Gorman was leading Lone Peak 35-14 early in the third quarter when an altercation broke out on Lone Peak’s sideline and the game was ruled a forfeit. According to Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association rules, if more than three players leave the sideline during an incident, that team must forfeit the game. The refs deemed that Lone Peak had multiple players leave the bench area, and Bishop Gorman did not.
Lone Peak’s players will no doubt be playing with a chip on their shoulder in the rematch as they were feeling confident in their ability to come back in last year’s game.
Other notable games are Archbishop Riordan, California, against West and Hun, New Jersey, vs. Skyridge in Week 3, and then in Week 4, Skyridge vs. Liberty, Nevada, and Corner Canyon vs. Liberty, Arizona.
Also of note, Rigby, Idaho — ranked No. 2 in the state — faces four different Utah teams in the first five weeks. Roy, Farmington, Syracuse and Box Elder hope to flex Utah muscles in the border matchups. Nevada No. 4 Arbor View travels to West in Week 1.
Overall, Utah teams went 19-23 against out-of-state teams in 2025.
Deer Creek splits Heber Valley
A rivalry 100 years in the making is about to be born.
Deer Creek High opens its doors for the first time on Aug. 17, the first new high school in Heber Valley in over 100 years. It’s just 1.5 miles northwest of Wasatch High, on the other side of Main Street.
Both teams will compete in Region 5 in Class 4A, as Wasatch drops down from 5A with its student body cut in half this season.
Wasatch football hasn’t had a winning season since going 7-4 in 2021, where it advanced to the second round. Dropping down to 4A should help the Wasps as it will no longer have to compete against 5A heavyweights in Utah County.
Most first-year schools struggle without many upperclassmen, which will likely be Deer Creek’s reality this season. Going forward, it will be interesting to see which school separates itself from the other in athletic superiority, or if the valley will remain deadlocked in great rivalry games.
Will long streaks continue in 2026?
With the high school football season set to kick off this week, six of the seven state champs from a year ago begin ranked No. 1 in their respective classifications in the Deseret News preseason coaches rankings.
There’s a high, high probability that at least one of them repeat as well — and most likely multiple will. There has been at least one repeat high school football state champ in Utah for the past 41 years.
Last season there were three repeat state champs. San Juan won a fifth-straight state championship, with Corner Canyon and Rich both winning a third straight.
The last time there wasn’t a repeat state champ was in 1985, when Weber, Springville, Delta and Kanab were all new state champs.
San Juan entered rarified air last season with its fifth straight title as only three other programs have ever won at least five straight: West won eight straight from 1898 to 1905, East won six straight from 1919 to 1923 and Skyline won five straight from 1995 to 1999.
Bounceback in the cards?
Twelve high schools in Utah won either one or zero games last season, and all 12 head into the 2026 season with virtually no external expectations. Early August, however, is a time for optimism, and there’s plenty of it at those 12 programs.
Six of the schools made a coaching change after last season (Cedar Valley, Kearns, Bonneville, Uintah, Cottonwood and Monument Valley). For the other six, they’re hoping continuity within the coaching staff allows them to build on the foundation established a year ago despite the lack of wins.
Stark turnarounds aren’t too common, but every year there’s a handful of teams that do improve dramatically, which gives last year’s bottom dozen hope for 2026.
Skyline was one of those one-win teams in 2024 (1-10), but it made a huge jump in 2025 in posting a 9-4 record.
Herriman went from three wins to 10 wins during the same stretch. Springville and West Field both improved six wins from 2024 to 2025.
The biggest jump belonged to Cedar, which went 4-7 in 2024 to 13-0 and won its first-ever state championship in 2025.