Utah and Iowa State both watched the head coaches who built them walk out the door for blue-blood jobs this offseason — now they meet in Big 12 play with two completely different rebuilds on display.
Bush’s Picks
UTAHISU
UTAHISU
OverUnder
Best BetUtah
Utah kept its starting quarterback and its best skill piece through an offseason that could've gutted the roster, and Big 12 media voters still have the Utes penciled in as a top-tier team. Iowa State, by contrast, is replacing its quarterback, its coach and roughly half its two-deep at once. That's a lot of moving parts for a team picked to finish last in the league, and it's hard to back the Cyclones to win outright in this spot.
Utah
+Kept starting QB Dampier and top target Ficklin
+Retained 55% of production from 11-2 team
+Preseason polls have Utah top three-to-five in Big 12
−Lost all five starting offensive linemen
−Scalley is a first-time head coach
−Cyclones have won 5 of 6 all-time meetings
Iowa State
+Added dual-threat transfer QB Raynor, 67 career TDs
+Leads the all-time series 5-1 over Utah
+New OC ties give Raynor familiarity with the scheme
−Lost 55 players to the portal, 24 to Penn State
−Picked last in Big 12 preseason media poll
−Rogers is a first-year coach rebuilding from scratch
Morgan Scalley takes over at Utah after 21 years under Kyle Whittingham, who left for Michigan, and the biggest thing Scalley did all offseason was keep his locker room from blowing up further. He locked down starting QB Devon Dampier and playmaker Byrd Ficklin even as the coaching staff scattered, which Scalley himself called a coup. Across the field, Jimmy Rogers inherits an Iowa State program that lost its QB entirely — Rocco Becht followed old coach Matt Campbell to Penn State — and has plugged in Rice transfer Jaylen Raynor, a dual-threat with 67 career touchdowns, as the new QB1 heading into camp.
The roster math tells the real story here. Utah retained 55% of its production from an 11-2, 2025 squad and added 16 portal newcomers around Dampier, even after losing all five starting offensive linemen. Iowa State wasn't so lucky — 55 players hit the portal once Campbell left, with 24 of them following him straight to Penn State, gutting a team that finished 8-4 and skipped its bowl game after players voted the roster too banged-up to play on.
Show fees
11:00 PM CT
Spread
ML
Total
UTAH Utah
ISU Iowa State
History leans Iowa State's way, for what it's worth — the Cyclones are 5-1 all-time against Utah, including a 31-28 win in Salt Lake City back in 2024 on a late Carson Hansen touchdown run. But that team had Becht and Campbell. This one is starting over from close to zero, and the gap between these two programs looks a lot wider heading into 2026 than it did the last time they played.
Utah Utes
Sep 19?vs Utah State—
Sep 12?vs Arkansas—
Sep 3?vs Idaho—
Iowa State Cyclones
Sep 19?vs Bowling Green—
Sep 12?@ Iowa—
Sep 5?vs Southeast Missouri State—
Recent form.
The preseason polls put a number on that gap. Big 12 media voters slotted Utah in the 3-5 range behind Texas Tech and BYU, while Iowa State landed dead last in the conference, with just one head coach picking the Cyclones to win the league. That's a brutal outside expectation for a program that's made a habit of overachieving under Campbell — now it falls on Rogers to prove this roster still has some fight left in it even with the deck stacked against him.
Utah Utes
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Iowa State Cyclones
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Injury report — info via ESPN.
This one's a measuring-stick game for both new coaches on Friday, September 25 — Scalley trying to show Utah didn't lose a step without Whittingham, Rogers trying to show Iowa State isn't the pushover the polls say it is. Neither staff has called a real game together yet, which makes projecting this one more art than science.
