UCLA Football Preview: Utah Coaching Staff Provide Stability & Excellence
The Utah coaching staff has been stable under Whittingham
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That might as well be the mantra of Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham because Whittingham’s coaching staff has been remarkably stable during his time as head coach of the Utes.
First, there’s Whittingham himself. He’s now in his 18th year as the head coach of the Utes. In fact, after TCU fired Gary Patterson last season, Whittingham became the second longest tenured head coach in the FBS behind only Iowa’ Kirk Ferentz.
That longevity paid off last season as the Utes won the Pac-12 Championship Game and earned a Rose Bowl appearance. The Utes lost to #6 Ohio State, 48-45, but despite the Pac-12 not being represented in the CFP since Washington in 2016, the game showed that the Pac-12 Champs can stick with a quality opponent.
Of course, Whittingham would likely credit his coordinators for a lot of his team’s success.
Morgan Scalley is in his 15th season on the Utah staff and he has been the team’s defensive coordinator since 2016. During that time, the Utes have led the conference in rushing defense in five of six seasons. Over the past four seasons, Scalley's defense has held opponents to 15 points or fewer 20 times, third most in all of FBS. Scalley has instilled the culture and identity of the Utah Defense known as RSNB – standing for Relentless, Smart, Nasty, Ballhawks. Those are all qualities I would want a defense to have and it’s certainly been a big part of Utah’s success.
By contrast, offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig is a relative newcomer to Whittingham’s staff. That said, he’s still in the fourth year of his second stint with the Utes. During Ludwig’s first stint, he was the offensive during Utah’s undefeated 2008 season. Since Ludwig's return, the Utah offense has eclipsed 450 yards of total offense in a game 16 times in 33 games, also scoring 30-or-more points in 24. He is a proponent of running a balanced offense and he has coached a 1,000-yard rusher 17 times in his FBS coaching career, including Utah’s Quinton Ganther and Darrell Mack during his first stint with the Utes. More recently, Zack Moss, who ran for 1,416 in 2019 and Tavion Thomas, who ran for 1,108 last season, are the latest Utah 1,000-yard rushers.
Let’s take a look at the Utes’ special teams unit.
Special Teams
Sophomore Jordan Noyes has been the Utes’ only kicker for field goals and PATs this season and he has been perfect. He’s made all five of his field goal attempts including a long of 43 yards in the season opener against Florida. He’s also made all 27 of his PATs as well.
Noyes has split the kickoff duties with junior Jaddon Redding. Noyes has kicked off 20 times this season with seven of them going for touchbacks. He is averaging 62 yards per kickoff. Meanwhile, Redding has kicked off 18 times with seven touchbacks. His average is 61.8 yards per kickoff. So, with each of these guys, the Utes are getting touchbacks only about a third of the time, meaning that UCLA should have opportunities to run kickoffs back this weekend.
Australian junior Jack Bouwmeester transferred to Utah this year after two seasons at Michigan State where he didn’t see any playing time. Bouwmeester hasn’t proven to another great Aussie punter so far. His longest punt this season went for just 48 yards and he is averaging just 39.8 yards per punt. Nine of his 16 punts have been fair catches while one went for a touchback and three of them have landed inside the 20.
Three Utes have returned punts this season. Receiver Devaughn Vele has returned the most with 11. He is averaging 11.82 yards per return with a long of 21 against Southern Utah. Tiquan Gilmore has returned a pair of punts, one of which went for 11 yards while he lost two yards on the other. Junior Money Parks also returned a punt for three yards against Southern Utah.
Utah has only returned four kickoffs this season and Micah Bernard has taken three of them. Bernard is averaging 26.33 yards per return with a long of 44 yards. So, he has the ability to break off a big return if UCLA doesn’t do a good job on kickoff coverage. Over the past two seasons, Utah has seemed content to start their offensive drives on the 25. So, look for the Utes to take the bulk of their kickoffs for touchbacks.
Go Bruins!!!
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.