Morgan Scalley

Head coach · Utah
2nd season · since 2025

At Utah9-0since 2025 · 8-0 this seasonHot seatCool0% · 131st of 132 jobsLast gameW 49-25at Cincinnati · Oct 31Nextvs BYUSat Nov 7 · 12 pm ET · ABC
This week · as of Wed Nov 4

8-0, won 8 straight, on track for 11-1 in the regular season.

Now

Career arc

Bowls and playoffs: 1-0

2025Las Vegas BowlW 44-22

This week Wed Nov 4

  • Last gameW 49-25 at Cincinnati Sat Oct 31
  • This season8-0 won 8 straight
  • On track for11-1 regular season
  • Nextvs. BYU Sat Nov 7
  • Stature20th of 138 FBS programs

What the result changed

  • AP poll #6 → #3 up three
  • Playoff odds 36% → 49% CFB Zeitgeist forecast, before and after

Saturday: vs. BYU

Sat Nov 7, 12 pm ET ABC · No. 7 BYU is 7-1 · Scalley vs. Kalani Sitake (not counting 1 game in seasons either team changed coaches) · Utah’s chance to win: 69% (the site’s model)

His week

Can’t say enough good things about him”

Morgan Scalley previews matchup vs. BYU QB Bear Bachmeier

Deseret News headline · Tue Nov 3
Does God care who wins this game? No”

Morgan Scalley talks rivalry ahead of Saturday’s Utah-BYU matchup

Deseret News headline · Mon Nov 2

Many stories this week →

The headlines, Nov 1–4 from several outlets

On the podcasts

Offense: 21st of 138 per play. Defense: 30th.

Offense, per play21stRunning offense4thDefense, per play30thDefense, knocking offenses off schedule20thWorstBest
Offense, per play21st of 138Running offense4th of 138Defense, per play30th of 138Defense, knocking offenses off schedule20th of 138WorstBest
Through 8 games. Each tick is an FBS team, adjusted for opponent strength (CFB Zeitgeist model); the dot is Utah. The other two rows are where Utah stands furthest from the middle. Early-season numbers move a lot.

4 games left

  1. Sat Nov 7vs. BYU (7-1)ABC69%
  2. Sat Nov 14at Arizona (6-2)52%
  3. Sat Nov 21at TCU (4-4)72%
  4. Fri Nov 27vs. West Virginia (5-3)FOX95%

Percent: Utah’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.

How the season got here

Where Utah stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).

14th20th26thPreseason20thIdaho W 66-14Idaho W 66-14W 66-14Idaho21stArkansas W 43-10Arkansas W 43-10W 43-10Arkansas21stUtah State W 33-0Utah State W 33-0W 33-0Utah State21stIowa State W 31-17Iowa State W 31-17W 31-17Iowa State21stKansas W 41-24Kansas W 41-24W 41-24Kansas21stColorado W 27-24Colorado W 27-24W 27-24Colorado21stHouston W 21-13Houston W 21-13W 21-13Houston21stCincinnati W 49-25Cincinnati W 49-25W 49-25Cincinnati21st
  1. Oct 26–Nov 1W 49-25 at Cincinnati9 headlines · 45th of 138Morgan Scalley on Utah Football's Success: 'I Don't Have the Magic Sauce' Roundtable“I Don't Have the Magic Sauce”Morgan Scalley on Utah Football's Success, Oct 31
  2. Oct 19–25W 21-13 vs. Houston15 headlines · 32nd of 138Utah Utes first-year coach Morgan Scalley leading with love ESPN
  3. Oct 12–18W 27-24 at Colorado12 headlines · 30th of 138Colorado opponent breakdown: Previewing Morgan Scalley's Utah Utes 247Sports
  4. Oct 5–11W 41-24 vs. Kansas10 headlines · 38th of 138Why Morgan Scalley isn’t worried about Utah football’s recent 3rd-quarter struggles The Salt Lake Tribune
  5. Sep 28–Oct 4No game2 headlines · 75th of 138IMPRESSIVE: Morgan Scalley is OUT COACHING Kyle Whittingham as Utah Utes SUGRE past Michigan 5NEWS
  6. Sep 21–27 · rebuiltW 31-17 at Iowa State11 headlines · 37th of 138‘Do our talking with our pads’: Morgan Scalley proud of Utes’ ‘self-constraint’ in after-the-whistle extracurriculars at Iowa State Deseret News

Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.

Watch the biggest plays from Utah’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.

Hot seat

See every job →

This season

<1%chance he’s out by the end of this seasonCool131st-hottest of 132 FBS jobs
0%50%+

Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.

His first rated season here.

His hot seat, week by week

The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.

BoilingHotWarmCool20262026, week 3 (3 games in): <1%, 131st-hottest of 133 FBS jobs2026, week 4 (4 games in): <1%, 133rd-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 5 (4 games in): <1%, 133rd-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 6 (5 games in): <1%, 132nd-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 7 (6 games in): <1%, 134th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 8 (7 games in): <1%, 135th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 9 (8 games in): <1%, 136th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs2026, week 10 (8 games in): <1%, 131st-hottest of 132 FBS jobsnow

He took over during the 2025 season (1 game); that year is unrated, since each season counts against whoever started it.

What drives his number

The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.

  • ▼ Cooler
    8-0, outscoring opponents by 184 · AP-ranked
  • ▼ Cooler
    1-0 over his previous season here
  • ▼ Cooler
    Year 1 · tenure, which this model overrates
    (why?)

    Tenure is one of this model’s strongest inputs, but its weight was set when retirements like Nick Saban’s and Bob Stoops’ still counted as being pushed out, so it overstates how much tenure matters.

What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025

A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.

Were 8-0 after 8 games
0% pushed out over results · of 132 coaches
Were in year 1, after 8 games
1% pushed out over results · of 521 coaches
The outcome
Pushed out over results — a firing, forced resignation, mutual parting or non-renewal, each read case by case. Leaving for a better job, or retiring on his own terms, doesn’t count.
Buyout
No figure on file for this coach. The salary database predates the last coaching carousel; a name mismatch is suppressed rather than misattributed.

How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.

Poach watch

This winter

1%chance he leaves this winter for a head-coaching job elsewhere, or an NFL coordinator jobSettled106th-highest of 132 FBS head coaches
0%50%+

Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.

What drives his number

The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.

  • ▼ Lower
    His first season at Utah
  • ▼ Lower
    Age 49 · coaching at his alma mater, in the state he was born in
  • ▲ Higher
    1-0 over his previous season here
How good is this number? It ranks a head coach who leaves for another head-coaching job ahead of one who stays 78 to 82% of the time, and its average came within a point of the share who actually left. What it can’t do

Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.

  • The live number prices the games he has left with the power model’s ratings from this season. The test priced them with each team’s rating from the season before, because ratings made during past seasons were not kept, so this live version could not be replayed.
  • Programs new to FBS have no FBS record before this season in the data it reads, so their coaches are scored without one.
  • It is frozen: it learns nothing from 2026 until a deliberate refit.
  • A coach hired in December needs his background (age, alma mater, the state he was born in) added before his first game, or he shows as not rated.