Morgan Scalley Weekly Press Conference: Arkansas
9/7/2026 1:15 PM | Football
SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah head football coach Morgan Scalley held his weekly press conference on Monday with members of the media inside the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center.
Selected quotes from Coach Scalley can be seen below. Click here for the full press conference video.
Opening Statement…
After watching the film of the Idaho game, I think a question was asked at that press conference about how did I feel about the defensive line? Really felt good about Karson Kaufusi. I thought he played very well. Jireh Moe did some really good things and then I thought Lance Holtzclaw was all over the field providing pressure. A lot of QB hits in that game, which is what we're after, making him throw off schedule, making him uncomfortable. There are definitely some things to clean up, but, overall, happy about one holding penalty. I didn't quite mention the special teams. I thought Dillon Curtis was really good. Protection was good all night. Orion had one punt that he did a really nice job with that. So, special teams, really not too much of a factor, although Mana Carvalho probably got away with one if we're going to be honest and the fact that he chased it down. I said, dude, if you're going to do something like that, don't chase it down if you're going to act. Probably got away with one there, but he also had a really nice return on another punt return. We got Arkansas coming in this week, another SEC opponent. Florida was 2023, so a second SEC opponent we will have faced in Rice Eccles Stadium. Excited about that and they are a quality opponent.
On what he saw on film from the offensive line…
I felt, as the game went on, they played much more cohesive. Devon getting hit, some of that was him, you know, pulling the ball, holding onto the ball for a little bit. Sometimes those options, when you're doing the read fakes and stuff like that, you're going to end up getting your quarterback hit at times, but we'd like to definitely take those hits off of him. We don't want him getting hit as much as he was getting hit early in that game. Didn't didn't give up a sack. Proud of our offensive line. We had a good rotation there at the guard spot. I thought guys got quality reps. We'll settle in on a starting five this week that hopefully can last us throughout the game.
On he learned about his offense in week one…
Well, I think the biggest thing was the amount of guys that were involved in the offense. I know people come away with Braden Pegan getting a lot of credit for some of the caches that he had, but I think Devon had eight different wide receivers that he was able to connect with and then Hunter Andrews was in the mix and you add our running backs and the depth that we have there. So that was, I think, the biggest thing for us was the ability to show different personnel groups and distribute the ball to different guys. Great to see Larry come in and make catches, Mana Carvalho, just getting as many guys reps as possible that deserve it, but that can create issues when you're scheming for an offense, like, okay, who are their guys? And who do we need to take care of? And when you've got that many guys getting the ball, it can be a tough one.
On the Arkansas quarterback…
Yeah, he's just a bigger guy. Much like Caleb Williams, when you're facing those bigger quarterbacks, you're coming with a lot of speed, you really got to be able to break down and tackle thick. It's not like you can trip them up that easy. He can throw the ball. He has shown the ability to do both with his starts that he had last season. This is a guy that, you know, they don't do a whole lot of dedicated Q-run game with him, but they have it in their arsenal. We've seen that from what Coach Silverfield did at Memphis, so we've got to be able to prepare for both.
