Kyle Whittingham signed the fourth amendment to his University of Utah contract on Dec. 12. It struck a retirement arrangement that would have paid him $3.45 million a year for two years as a special assistant to the athletic director, and replaced it with a $13.5 million transition bonus and an exit.
Utah announced he was stepping down that day. Morgan Scalley took over on Dec. 13. Fourteen days after the signature, Michigan named Whittingham its 22nd head football coach on a five-year contract through 2030.
Seven months on, the Deseret News counted 93 players with Utah ties on NFL rosters as training camps opened. It is the highest total the paper has recorded, up from 82 last summer. Thirty-six of them played for the Utes.
All 36 came through the program during Whittingham's 21 seasons as head coach.
What the records showed
The public story in December was a retirement. Whittingham had spent 32 years at Utah and finished 177-88, the winningest coach in program history. Michigan's own announcement noted that Utah produced 31 NFL draft selections between 2017 and 2025, the most of any current Big 12 school. Scalley, the defensive coordinator, had been named coach-in-waiting in 2024 and moved up as planned.
Documents Utah released in March under a Deseret News records request told a different version.
On Dec. 2, three days before a deadline to state his plans, Whittingham's agent Bruce Tollner emailed associate athletic director Jeff Rudy to say his client did not intend to retire. The next day, Tollner sent terms. Whittingham was already set to earn $7.4 million in 2026 under a 2022 contract that ran through 2027. He asked for $1.6 million more in each of those years, $20 million in NIL funds, and $2 million more for assistant salaries.
Utah's counteroffer came from deputy athletics director John Jentz. One year at $8 million. The conditions were the story. Scalley would hold full and final oversight of recruiting, player personnel and the general manager position as of Feb. 1, a date that fell after the transfer portal closed. Effective immediately, Scalley would control every decision affecting the program beyond 2026. Any staffing change Whittingham made would need athletic director Mark Harlan's approval. A senior athletic department official would work full-time inside the football facility.
The two sides did not agree.
The exit amendment barred Whittingham from taking another job in Utah on penalty of forfeiting the bonus. It said nothing about leaving the state. In exchange for the money, he agreed to help deliver a smooth transition to the incoming staff.
Six assistant coaches followed him to Ann Arbor, among them offensive coordinator Jason Beck. So did four players, including cornerback Smith Snowden and edge rusher John Henry Daley, who led the FBS in tackles for loss before tearing an Achilles in November. Salesi Moa, a Utah recruit, went too.
Utah paid the first installment late. On Jan. 23, Harlan enclosed a check for $8,013,808.20 with a letter saying the university was disappointed, that Whittingham's involvement in recruiting Utah coaches and staff to Michigan ran contrary to his agreement, and that a fight over it would serve neither the program nor his legacy.
Tollner's response, given to the Deseret News, was that Whittingham had wanted to stay under his existing contract, that the university chose otherwise, and that the separation agreement did not prohibit him from engaging with coaches and staff.
Asked in March whether he knew Whittingham had wanted to stay, Scalley praised him and changed the subject. "My focus is on our program," he said.
The class that left with him
The best draft in Utah history came four months after he did.
Spencer Fano went ninth overall to Cleveland. He was the first offensive lineman taken, the fourth Ute ever picked in the top 10 and the 47th Utah offensive lineman drafted. He won the 2025 Outland Trophy, was a unanimous All-American and allowed no sacks in 357 pass-blocking snaps.
New England traded up three spots with Buffalo for Caleb Lomu at No. 28. That gave Utah two players in one first round for the first time, and made Lomu the 12th Ute first-round pick and the fourth offensive tackle, after Fano, Garett Bolles and Jordan Gross.
Both spent their entire college careers under Whittingham. So did Dallen Bentley, who arrived from Snow College and went to Denver with the 256th pick, second-to-last in the draft.
The same weekend produced the counterargument. Linebacker Lander Barton and edge rusher Logan Fano, Spencer's brother, both appeared in mock drafts as expected selections. Neither was picked. Barton signed with the Chargers as one of 18 undrafted free agents. Logan Fano signed with Cleveland the same way.
Two tackles in the first round. Two teammates who heard nothing across seven.
The number will fall
Ninety-three is a July figure. Teams carry 90 players through camp and cut to 53 before Week 1.
Last year, 82 became 75 by opening week, 47 of them on active rosters. Deseret puts the active-roster totals at 54 in 2024, 52 in 2023, 48 in 2022, 53 in 2021, 49 in 2020 and 45 in 2019. Twenty-six of this year's 93 are rookies. Twenty of those went undrafted.
The count is generous in its construction. A player qualifies with one season at any Utah college or high school and counts toward each school he attended, which is why Jack Kelly appears under both BYU and Weber State, and why Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss appears at all. Deseret's per-team table also adds up to 92 rather than 93, listing three Arizona Cardinals where four appear in the story itself. The piece was revised the morning after publication. Yahoo's syndicated copy still carries the earlier figure.
Scalley's first fall
The pipeline is not only Utah's. BYU has 23 players on rosters, Utah State 10 and Weber State eight. Forty-six of the 93 played high school football in the state, six of them at Orem.
At the top end, it is thinning. Bobby Wagner, a six-time first-team All-Pro out of Utah State, and Kyle Van Noy, a two-time Super Bowl winner out of BYU, are both unsigned as camps open. So is Taysom Hill. Fifteen other Utah ties are on the same list of available free agents.
Scalley opens against Idaho at Rice-Eccles on Sept. 3 and plays BYU on Nov. 7. Between those dates, 32 NFL teams will cut to 53, and the number that means something will replace the one that made news.
Article edited by Clint Betts. What are we missing? What did this piece get wrong? Email the editor at clint@utahn.com.
