Who Is Morgan Scalley? Utah's Head Coach, His Faith, His Road to the Job and His Push for a Kinder Holy War

Most BYU fans know Morgan Scalley as the man on the other sideline Saturday, the one whose team intercepted Bear Bachmeier four times and won 28-20. Fewer know much else about him.

Here's the short version. Scalley is a Salt Lake City kid who grew up wanting to play for Utah, became an All-American there, and has spent his whole coaching career on one staff. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served a mission in Germany. His oldest daughter goes to BYU. He calls Kalani Sitake "a dear friend." And in the week before the biggest Holy War in years, he spent his news conference asking both fan bases to drop the hatred.

He also has a past he has talked about openly, including a 2013 text message that nearly ended his career in 2020. This profile covers all of it, from his own words and the reporting of the Deseret News, KSL, The Salt Lake Tribune, LDS Living and the University of Utah.

Morgan Scalley at a glance

A Salt Lake kid who wanted to be a Ute

Scalley grew up in Salt Lake City and graduated from Highland High School, according to his University of Utah biography. When Utah named him head coach, he called the job "a childhood dream of mine that has turned into an incredible 25-year journey."

He lettered at safety for Utah from 2001 to 2004 and was very good at it. As a senior in 2004 he was a captain of the team that went 12-0, a second-team All-American by both the Associated Press and SI.com, a unanimous first-team all-conference safety and the Mountain West's co-Defensive Player of the Year. He returned punts, too, earning honorable mention all-conference honors for it in 2001 and 2002.

He was just as strong in the classroom. Utah's biography lists him as a two-time first-team Academic All-American, the 2004 Anson Mount Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the Mountain West's Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He graduated magna cum laude in mass communications with a 3.96 GPA, won two postgraduate scholarships including one from the NCAA, and finished an MBA at Utah in 2006. At the 2005 East-West Shrine Game he received the first Pat Tillman award.

The coaches he played for are a who's who of Utah football: Urban Meyer, Kyle Whittingham and Gary Andersen, according to a 2022 KSL profile.

The BYU games he played in

Scalley's memories of playing BYU are the kind every Ute fan of that era shares. In a news conference this rivalry week, he described the 2003 game in Provo, which he played days after tearing his meniscus.

"The 3-0 game down in Provo, that was neat because it was our first outright conference championship in 50 years that we had won," he said, as reported by the Deseret News. "It was the coldest game I've ever experienced either as a player or as a coach. I think it took everyone that was driving back to Salt Lake City two hours to get home."

The 2004 win sent Utah to the Fiesta Bowl. "We'd never done anything like it when we beat BYU to be able to go to the Fiesta Bowl," he said.

That senior year also produced the moment BYU fans tend to remember. Scalley was filmed telling teammates he hated BYU "with a passion," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. He brought it up himself this week. "I know that's probably going around the internet right now what I said my senior year," he said. What he said next is the reason for much of this article; more on that below.

Twenty years on one staff

Scalley didn't go straight into coaching. After a short stint in sports radio, he joined Whittingham's staff in 2006 as an administrative assistant and became a graduate assistant in 2007, KSL reported. He nearly left the profession to use his MBA. Instead he interviewed for and got the safeties job in 2008, and that season Utah went unbeaten and beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

"My coaching journey began when Kyle Whittingham decided to take a chance on me in 2008," he said when he was named head coach.

From there he climbed:

As coordinator he built the defensive identity Utah calls RSNB, "Relentless, Smart, Nasty, Ballhawks," KSL reported. Utah's biography says his defenses led the Pac-12 against the run in 2016 and from 2018 to 2021, and that he was a finalist for the 2019 Broyles Award, given to the nation's top assistant coach. By the school's count he has coached 14 All-Americans and 21 first-team all-conference players, and his players have reached the NFL 33 times.

He had chances to leave. KSL reported that several schools tried to hire him for more money or head coaching jobs, and he stayed. Asked about it in 2022, he pointed to home. "My priority has always been my family," he told KSL. "We can do big things here."

How he got the top job

Harlan had first verbally offered Scalley the "head coach-in-waiting" title in December 2019, ABC4 reported. It was taken away in 2020, for reasons covered below, and given back before the 2024 season, KSL reported.

On Dec. 13, 2025, athletic director Mark Harlan announced Scalley as the program's 24th head coach, succeeding Whittingham after 21 seasons. Whittingham coached his last game in the Las Vegas Bowl and then left for the University of Michigan. After that bowl, Scalley's first words were about him: "Grateful for Kyle Whittingham, my mentor, what an amazing coach and what he's done for this program. What he's done for me, personally, I can't thank him enough and wish him well on his journey at University of Michigan."

"He not only has great knowledge and perspective of what makes Utah football special," Harlan said when announcing the hire. University president Taylor Randall said he had "complete confidence in Morgan Scalley's leadership."

In his first season, Utah has not lost. The Utes are 9-0 after Saturday, with wins over Kansas, Colorado, Houston and Cincinnati along the way before BYU.

His faith

Scalley doesn't hide his religion. At his introductory news conference in January 2026, he said, "I'm grateful to my Savior, Jesus Christ, not ashamed to say that," the Deseret News reported. In an interview with Holly Rowe, he said, "I really do believe in God and God's timing."

He has talked about how he thinks he'll be judged. He told reporters he doesn't believe God will measure him by touchdowns or wins. "He will ask me, 'How did you serve? How did you give? Did you love?'" he said.

His most detailed conversation about his beliefs is an episode of LDS Living's All In podcast, recorded in 2025 while he was still defensive coordinator. In it he said he served a two-year mission in Munich, Germany, and that he had a testimony before he left: the spirit "knew that it was true before going on my mission." He described coaching as a chance to share it: "I'm grateful for the opportunities God has given me through my profession to bear testimony."

He was careful about the line between faith and coaching. He said he is not trying to convert players, but that many young men on the team want to talk about faith. "I don't believe that God cares about football," he said, "but he cares about football players."

His faith has followed the team on the road. When Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled with Utah to its game at Iowa State in October, Scalley called the visit "fantastic," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. He said he taught his players who Elder Rasband is, that the Latter-day Saint players already knew, and that "he's just a humble servant, and our guys loved it."

The family behind it

Scalley is married to the former Liz Herrscher, and they have three children. "This all would never have been possible without the support and sacrifice of my amazing wife, Liz," he said when he was named head coach. On the LDS Living podcast he put it more simply: "Man, do I have the strongest wife in the world?"

He tells his players that their most important role won't be on a football field. "The greatest title you will ever hold is not All-American or NFL draft pick," he has said; the greatest title, he tells them, is father. He has said that to be a great coach, he has to be a great dad, a great husband and a disciple of Christ first.

And for BYU fans, one more detail: on the LDS Living podcast, Scalley said his oldest daughter had graduated from Olympus High and was attending BYU.

The mistake, and what he says he learned

Any honest profile of Scalley has to include 2020.

In June 2020, a social media post brought to light a text message Scalley had sent in 2013 containing a racial slur. Utah suspended him immediately and hired an outside firm to investigate. Scalley didn't dispute it. "In 2013 I made a terrible mistake. I used a racial slur in a text message," he said in a statement reported by the Deseret News. "Immediately after sending it, I apologized to the recipient and his family. My action is indefensible and I will use my voice and position to bring about meaningful and much-needed change. I am completely against racism, and this will never happen again."

The outside review, released in July 2020, found more than the text. ABC4 reported its findings: an employee said Scalley told a racist joke at a 2018 practice, which two others corroborated and Scalley admitted; former players described comments about their hair, appearance or clothing that reflected racial stereotypes, which Scalley denied doing because of race; and two allegations about remarks to players before 2013 could not be fully corroborated and were denied. Most players described him as a tough, demanding coach who cared about them, and many said they did not see him as racist.

Utah kept him as defensive coordinator but cut his pay to $525,000 on a one-year deal, replacing a $1.1 million extension; took away the head-coach-in-waiting title; redirected $100,000 to the student-athlete group United Together Against Hate; and required ongoing diversity and inclusion education. "The racist language used by Coach Scalley is inexcusable and harmful to all," Harlan and Whittingham wrote in a joint letter. "We believe, and expect, that he will learn and lead, while owning his past conduct."

On a call with reporters, Scalley broke down. "I want to apologize to the young men I have coached and am coaching currently," he said. "I sincerely hope that you will give me the opportunity to gain that trust back."

Five years later, on the LDS Living podcast, he talked about it in the language of his faith. "The hard thing is that what I did hurt people," he said. He decided, he said, "I was gonna own this, and I was going to educate myself." He credited his father with showing him how: "My dad made mistakes and he was willing to own up to it." And he spoke of "the power of the atonement to change people for good."

He said his team now talks with players "about bias, about judgment, about educating ourselves before we respond," and that teaching only football would be a failure: "If the only skill sets we teach are how to become a better football player, we're failing these young men."

Readers will weigh that history differently. Utah weighed it, kept him and, four years later, gave him the job.

Kalani Sitake: "a dear friend"

For BYU fans, the most surprising thing about Scalley may be how much he likes the coach across the field.

Sitake and Scalley overlapped for years on Whittingham's staff. Sitake coached linebackers at Utah, later ran its defense and was assistant head coach from 2009 to 2014, KSL reported, before returning to his alma mater as BYU's head coach. Scalley has credited Sitake, his coordinator in those years, with helping develop him as a coach.

At Big 12 media days in July 2026, both men talked about the other.

"Morgan Scalley is a good friend of mine," Sitake said. "We worked together for a decade at Utah when I was coaching there." And: "Kyle Whittingham leaves, and another great friend of mine is the head coach at Utah. Nothing has really changed there."

Scalley returned it. "I have so much respect for Kalani and his staff. A lot of his staff I've worked with. But it's definitely mutual respect," he said. "I just think the way Kalani and I model our relationship with one another and the respect we have for each other" sets the tone, he said, though "you're always going to have the extremes."

In rivalry week he went further, as reported by the Deseret News. "Kalani's a dear friend, so I love him and I'm grateful for what he taught me and excited to go against him," Scalley said. He called Sitake "the ultimate competitor" and said the two are "very alike in the sense that we love to have fun, we love to joke." And he said he respects Sitake "so much as a human for the good that he does, the good that he is."

Asking for a cleaner Holy War

This is the part of Scalley's first year that BYU fans may remember longest.

The Holy War has had ugly moments, some of them recent. After BYU's last-second 22-21 win at Rice-Eccles in 2024, Utah's athletic director said the game was "absolutely stolen from us," BYU players taunted Utah fans in the end zone, a fan was arrested for throwing a water bottle that hit a BYU cheer coach in the head, and a Utah tight end picked up trash fans had thrown on the field, the Deseret News reported. Harlan apologized to Sitake the next day and later said he had not been "a great example." Both university presidents, Taylor Randall of Utah and Shane Reese of BYU, have since pushed a joint "Rival Right" campaign: "be respectful, be competitive, while keeping it lighthearted."

Scalley, who once told teammates he hated BYU with a passion, used his first rivalry week as head coach to ask everyone to cool it.

"At the end of the day, it's mine and Kalani's hope that this thing can be more civil," he said at his Monday news conference, as reported by KSL, the Deseret News and The Salt Lake Tribune. "The hatred, the toxicity that is spewed from both sides, to me it's not good for the rivalry."

He said what makes the rivalry great is the football. "What makes it great is it's competitive, it's the back and forth," he said. "Look at us, in one state within 30 minutes of each other, we're sitting here ranked in the top 10. That's awesome. No other state can say that. So much respect for Kalani and that crew."

And he said, as a Latter-day Saint coaching against the church's university, that the religious framing gets overdone. "Yes, you have a predominant religion as part of one school, but I think we make too much of that," he said. "There are young men playing on both teams that aren't LDS, and there are fans that aren't LDS. At the end of the day, does God care who wins this game? No. Does he care about people? Yes. And so I think we can be better to each other in that realm."

He wasn't alone on his side. Utah's student section, the MUSS, posted that "discriminatory behavior will not be tolerated." President Randall posted, "Be loud. Be proud. Be relentless. And above all, keep it classy." The university's conduct page added a line banning "slurs, chants or signs targeting anyone's race, religion, gender, sexuality or disability, or any school's faith." The Big 12 had already set new penalties for discriminatory chants, starting with a $100,000 fine for a school's first confirmed incident.

He also talked about what the rivalry could be at its best: "the whole family draw is what can make it so good."

His love for the rivalry

None of that means Scalley takes the game lightly. "That's how much the rivalry... it means a lot," he said this week. In July he called it "one of the best in the country, honestly."

He has lived every side of it: as a kid in Salt Lake, as a player in a frozen 3-0 game in Provo, as an assistant beside Sitake, and now as the head coach of a team that just beat his friend's. His version of the rivalry, as he described it this week, is one where both teams are good, both sides are loud, and nobody has to hate anybody to enjoy it.

Saturday's result made the first part easy for Utah fans to enjoy. Whether the rest sticks is up to both fan bases. The next test is in Provo, where Utah's 2027 schedule lists the game at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

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