Month: August 2025

The number of homeless Utahns surged to its highest level ever in 2025 as state leadership continues to debate how to balance enhanced law enforcement and increased funding for an expanded shelter system.

Nearly 4,600 Utahns were recorded as homeless during the annual 2025 Point-in-Time Count conducted the final weekend of January, representing an 18% increase from 2024 and the largest number on record.

“We had a huge increase in homelessness,” State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Niederhauser told the Deseret News. “But we’ve been effective in responding to it.”

The sobering news comes as the nation also reaches record rates of homelessness. On Monday, President Donald Trump federalized the Washington, D.C., police department at least in part in an effort to crack down on the city’s homeless encampments.

At the end of July, Trump issued an executive order overturning the government’s “housing first” approach to homelessness and instructing agencies to remove obstacles for states to place homeless individuals into long-term institutional care if they pose a risk to themselves or others.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox lauded the move, ordering the Utah Homeless Services Board, which includes Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, to “fulfill the President’s executive order and uphold public safety” in a letter joined by Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz.

In Utah, nearly half of the increase in homelessness was driven by growth in the chronically homeless population — defined as those who have spent at least a year on the streets with a disability, mental illness or drug addiction.

The total number of Utahns experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 36% since 2024, from 906 to 1,233. The number of homeless children increased by 12%, from 589 to 662. And the number of homeless seniors over 64 increased by 42% from 251 to 356.

There is a “silver lining” in the data, according to Niederhauser: 95% of the increase was among homeless individuals in shelters — a reversal from the year before when 82% of the growth in homelessness was unsheltered.

This is an indication the state’s investment in winter emergency shelters is helping keep Utahns off the street, according to Niederhauser. But the overall increase — the largest jump in recent memory — points to the need for a new approach.

Why did homelessness shoot up?

Utah’s record amount of homelessness in 2025 increased the per capita rate to 13 per 10,000 people compared to the previous rate of around 10 or 11 per 10,000. This is still significantly below the national average of 23.

In its annual report published Wednesday, the Utah Office of Homeless Services attributed the rise in homelessness to a rapidly growing population that has outpaced the supply of affordable housing and access to behavioral health services.

The increase also follows an unprecedented spike in fentanyl being trafficked through the state. Between 2020 and 2024, the quantity of fentanyl seized in Utah increased 95-fold — with interdictions in 2025 nearly overtaking the prior year’s record before May.

“The data is clear. There is an overlap between the drugs, the transient-related crime and violent crime,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told the Deseret News. “There is a connection to those things.”

Around two-thirds of Utah’s homeless population lives in the Salt Lake City area, according to the Office of Homeless Services.

On Wednesday, Redd and Mendenhall held a press conference outside City Hall to send a message to the governor and legislative leadership about where responsibility lies for the growing problem.

Wednesday’s report “should be heard as a battle cry,” Mendenhall said, spurring action at the Utah Capitol to fully fund services and shelter space to prevent homelessness, encourage treatment and keep Utahns off of the streets.

“We need our state leaders to prioritize the resources to get this done,” Mendenhall said. “So to Gov Cox, President Adams and Speaker Schultz, I’m calling on our state leadership to create a sea change that we need to address an issue that impacts all Utahns and just increased by 18%.”

In December, Cox; Adams, R-Layton; and Schultz, R-Hooper; sent a strongly worded letter to Mendenhall that called for the city to find solutions to “eliminate crime and restore public safety” or have the Legislature step in.

Mendenhall subsequently provided a public safety plan with 27 recommendations that revolved around remaking city law enforcement and another 23 requests relying on state partners to help close the gap in homeless beds and the criminal justice system.

Since Redd has taken over as police chief, the department has taken “enforcement as far as we can,” answering a record number of 911 calls with a record number of yearly arrests, contributing to a 16-year-low in crime, Mendenhall said.

The largest obstacle to changing “the trajectory of homelessness in Utah,” Mendenhall said, isn’t Salt Lake’s willingness to crack down on crime, it’s the Legislature’s commitment to invest in long-term solutions, like funding the so-called “transformative campus” touted by Cox and lawmakers.

“I’m extremely concerned by the lack of forward momentum from legislative leaders,” Mendenhall said. “Salt Lake City is making good on our part, but the reality is, this is a humanitarian crisis, this is not something that we can police our way out of.”

State leaders push back on Mendenhall

Cox, Adams and Schultz pushed back against Mendenhall on Wednesday. Since Utah’s homeless numbers began climbing in 2020, the state has invested more than $266 million on addressing homelessness, they said.

This level of direct state investment is rare; most states delegate homelessness policy to cities and counties. Cox, Adams and Schultz said the Utah Governor’s Office and Legislature remain committed to helping municipal and private-sector partners “find real solutions.”

The overhaul to city law enforcement under Redd has been an encouraging sign, the leaders said. Mendenhall agreed the city and state must work closer together to address homelessness concerns before the Salt Lake City Temple open house in 2027 and the Olympic Winter Games in 2034.

“The city needs to stay focused on its core responsibility of protecting its citizens, keeping streets safe and clean and making our capital a place Utahns can be proud of and visitors want to experience,” Cox, Adams and Schultz said.

“We urge Mayor Mendenhall to turn down the politics and keep working with us to find practical and lasting solutions to this complex issue. Our citizens expect results, not finger-pointing.”

During the 2025 legislative session, Utah lawmakers approved, and Cox signed into law, $3.9 million in ongoing funding to launch a second family shelter in Salt Lake County, $5.5 million in one-time funding to expand emergency cold-weather shelter operations statewide and $16.7 million to shore up public resources in shelter cities.

Will lawmakers fund the planned shelter?

The session prior, the Legislature appropriated $25 million to buy land and construct the future backbone of the state’s homelessness response: a 30-acre campus with 1,200-1,600 beds and an integrated system of treatment resources and recovery programs on site.

Niederhauser said they are still investigating several potential properties for the campus. But many of them, including an area near the Salt Lake City Airport that the Legislature made available for eminent domain, require wetland studies that will take several more weeks to apply for, and several months to complete through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The priority for Niederhauser’s office going into the 2026 legislative session is appropriations to fully fund the construction of the facility because the $25 million they received “isn’t going to be sufficient to do it all,” Niederhauser said.

But Niederhauser said they won’t put “$25-50 million of infrastructure on the ground” until the Legislature has decided whether it is willing to set aside the necessary annual funding to make the campus functional, “which is going to be a very large number.”

It currently costs the state $15-$20 million to fund the shelter beds that are available, Niederhauser said. And a campus that is actually intended to model operations like Haven For Hope homelessness campus in San Antonio, Texas, could cost twice that much every year.

“We’re obviously going to need to have additional funding for the campus, and that’ll be a high priority for us,” Niederhauser said. “That would probably be our focus.”

In the meantime before the campus is completed, Niederhauser said the Legislature can appropriate funding to keep the 1,100 winter beds available past April so providers aren’t forced to release “hundreds of additional people to sleep on the street” each spring.

A man accused of faking his death and fleeing to the United Kingdom to avoid rape charges faced an alleged victim in court Monday as a jury trial in Utah began.

The man known in the US as Nicholas Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, is accused of sexually assaulting two women in Utah in 2008. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutors are trying the cases separately, with the first set in Salt Lake County.

Rossi, 38, was arrested in Scotland in 2021 — a year after he was reported dead — when he was recognized at a Glasgow hospital while receiving treatment for COVID-19. He lost an extradition appeal after claiming he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who had never set foot on American soil and was being framed.

Prosecutors say they have identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture.

Rossi appeared in court in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie and using an oxygen tank. The alleged victim identified him from the witness stand, saying he’s “a little bit heavier, a little bit older” but mostly looks the same.

District Judge Barry Lawrence helped clarify for the jury some of the twists and turns of the case, explaining that different people may refer to Rossi by different names. The defense and prosecution agreed it’s factual that Rossi was in Utah in 2008 and had a relationship that year with the woman who testified.

Prosecutors painted a picture of an intelligent man who used his charm to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman. He raped her when she pushed back against his attempts to control her, said Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Brandon Simmons.

The woman, who the judge asked not be identified publicly, described a whirlwind relationship with Rossi that began in November 2008 while she was recovering from a traumatic brain injury. The two began dating after she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist and were engaged within about two weeks.

The woman described being asked to pay for their dates, cover Rossi’s rent so he wouldn’t be evicted from his apartment and take on debt to buy their engagement rings.

“I was a little bit more of a timid person back then, and so it was harder for me to stand up for myself,” she said.

The relationship spiraled quickly after their engagement, with Rossi “becoming controlling and saying mean things to me,” she testified. The couple got into a fight in which Rossi pounded on her car and used his body to block her from pulling out of the parking garage. She finally let him inside and drove him home but said she had no plans of continuing a relationship.

She agreed to go into his house to talk, but he instead pushed her onto his bed, held her down and “forced me to have sex with him,” she testified. The woman described lying still, paralyzed with fear.

Dismissive comments from her parents convinced her not to go to the police at the time, she said. She did, however, try to bring Rossi to small claims court over the engagement rings but dropped the case.

Rossi’s lawyers sought to convince the jury that the alleged victim built up years of resentment after Rossi made her foot the bill for everything in their monthlong relationship, and accused him of rape to get back at him a decade later when she saw him in the news.

Rossi will also stand trial in September for another rape charge in Utah County.

Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and had returned to the state before allegedly faking his death. An obituary published online claimed he died on Feb. 29, 2020, of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma. State police, along with Rossi’s former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead. A year later, hospital staff in Scotland recognized his tattoos from an Interpol notice and alerted authorities. He was extradited to Utah in January 2024.

“This case is like an old puzzle from the thrift store,” said MacKenzie Potter, one of Rossi’s attorneys. “It’s 13 years old, not all the pieces are there, some pieces are from a different puzzle. And when you start going through everything, you’re not going to get a complete picture.”

Prosecutors pushed back, saying that if any “puzzle pieces” are missing, it’s because Rossi’s attorneys fought to have some evidence dismissed.

The “American Ninja Warrior” announcers never tire of saying it: Kai Beckstrand, a teenager from St. George, Utah, is one of the most formidable competitors on the show.

So far, throughout his Season 17 runs, the 19-year-old has been called “the ninja to beat” and “the fastest ninja on the planet.”

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He’s a favorite to win it all, and Monday night continued to make a strong case for that outcome.

Kai Beckstrand dominates in first round of ‘ANW’ finals

Sixty ninjas — including Kai and his younger brother, Luke — are competing in the Season 17 finals, which started Aug. 4 and continued Monday night.

In a new format, the show divided the 60 competitors into groups of four based on their runtimes. Ninjas in each group have to face off against each other in a series of one-on-one races. After everyone in a group has run against each other, the two competitors with the most wins advance to the next round.

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The new format plays to Kai Beckstrand’s advantage.

“Speed’s always been my favorite thing,” he previously told the Deseret News.

Beckstrand’s group Monday night included “ANW” veterans like 40-year-old Jessie Graff, a stuntwoman who has been on the show for 11 seasons; and Donovan Metoyer, the “Classy Ninja” who typically runs in formalwear.

The teenager won every race in his bracket — and completed each of his three runs in under a minute.

He finished his last race, against five-time competitor Isabella Folsom, in a staggering 44:09 — marking, by a tenth of a second, the new fastest time of all the competitors on that specific course (so far).

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With his dominant performance, Beckstrand is guaranteed a top seed in the next round of the finals. Moving forward, he joins his brother Luke — who last week had a come-from-behind win to keep his season alive.

The brothers recently spoke with the Deseret News about their dominating runs this season — and how being some of the fastest ninjas on the show affects their rivalry.

‘We’re always pushing each other’

As two of the speediest ninjas this season, Kai and Luke Beckstrand have been each other’s toughest competitors.

They delivered the two fastest times of their episode during the show’s first round: Kai completed the course in 52.90 seconds, and Luke came in just slightly behind with a time of 54.92 seconds.

During the semifinals, it looked like Kai would again secure the fastest time of the night.

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But when the 19-year-old reached the Invisible Ladder — an obstacle that requires hanging onto two rings and hoisting yourself up 30 feet to the buzzer — it proved to be a big demand for his 180-pound body.

He still managed to hit the buzzer in roughly 3 minutes and 45 seconds — an impressive feat, but not the fastest time of the night.

Instead, that distinction went to Luke, who, with a little more gas in his tank, navigated all 10 obstacles in 3 minutes and 12 seconds — more than 30 seconds ahead of his older brother.

“I knew I could beat it, but I didn’t know that I would beat it by 30 seconds,” Luke Beckstrand previously said. “That was a big amount of time, but I just stayed smooth through all the obstacles, didn’t take as much of a break, and I was just chasing down that time.”

For the second time in a row, the brothers secured the two fastest times of their episode — this time, though, the top spot went to Luke.

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That back and forth dynamic plays out regularly behind the scenes at their family’s gym, The Grip, in St. George.

At the gym — where they coach and inspire kids who hope to someday compete on their level — the brothers regularly work on their strength and speed as they build familiarity and comfort with obstacles they could potentially come across on the show.

They frequently try to outdo their own times — and each other.

“In training, we’re always pushing each other,” Kai Beckstrand said. “If he gets a faster time than me, I’ll run that course again, beat his time. He’ll go back, beat my time again. So it just goes back and forth.”

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The brothers are constantly motivating each other at home, and that intensifies when they’re in the spotlight on a competitive show like “American Ninja Warrior.”

“Watching him get the fastest time, it’s a little bittersweet,” Kai Beckstrand previously said of his younger brother beating his time in the semifinals by more than 30 seconds. “I want him to do as good as possible, and if that is going faster than me, then that’s the case. So it definitely pushed me in training to kind of get more efficient with my obstacles.

“But I mean, overall, just looking up at him on top, I couldn’t be more proud of him,” he continued. “He’s my training partner, and we go back and forth all the time. So can’t really be too mad about it.

“It’s just a testament to how hard we’re putting in the work.”

Tuesday is primary Election Day in Utah and here’s a look at what you need to know.

What races? There are a variety of municipal and school board elections taking place around the state this year. Not all of the elections taking place have a primary on Tuesday, due to either cities using ranked choice voting or there not being enough candidates to warrant a primary.

Multiple cities around Utah are having mayoral elections this year including Logan, Provo and St. George.

What’s new? It is too late for Utahns to send their ballots in by mail. According to HB300 passed by the state Legislature earlier this year, ballots have to be in possession of the county clerk by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

For those who haven’t mailed their ballots yet, they can still be submitted through their county’s drop boxes. There are drop box locations all around the state to find a location near you visit votesearch.utah.gov.

Voters can also cast their ballots in person at their county’s vote center. Polls will be open until 8 p.m.

For people who plan to vote in person they must provide a valid form of photo ID, such as a Utah driver license or a U.S. passport; tribal identification cards are also acceptable. If you don’t have one of those forms of identification you can also provide two other forms of identification that include your name and address.

For more information on how or where to vote, and what elections are taking place visit vote.utah.gov.

Ogden • Jake Schmitt looked up, droplets from the cool stream dribbling down his chin, and locked eyes with his best friend, Buddy. The 6-year-old German shorthaired pointer also had water dripping from his black snout.

Schmitt, 34, has been a hunter for most of his life and a hunting guide in Utah for almost a decade. He knew he shouldn’t be drinking from a stream, that his stomach could violently cramp from giardia once the water and parasites worked their way inside. But that was a tomorrow problem. He wasn’t even sure he would make it through the night — or if he would even notice the pain with so much of it already wracking his body.

It had been hours — four? eight? Schmitt wasn’t sure — since his Polaris Ranger had tumbled down a hillside deep in the Uinta Mountains. In the rollover, he shattered both ankles, two ribs and his leg. By the time they reached the river, he and Buddy had been crawling down a rutted logging road, both on all fours, for so long that while the reinforced patches on the knees of Schmitt’s hunting pants remained intact, the skin on his kneecaps was shredded and bleeding. He needed this respite. He could see Buddy needed it, too.

“We looked at each other, and I was like, ‘Dude, this water is so good.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, can we just take a minute? This water is really good,’” Schmitt recalled. “And I was like, ’We can take five minutes, Buddy. I’m so sorry.’”

Schmitt had gotten them into this — what would end up being an 11-hour slog to his truck and another 40-minute drive to help. What got them out, he said, was Buddy.

‘I had everything you could imagine’

Before he moved to Ogden in 2022, Schmitt made an annual pilgrimage from his home in Buffalo, N.Y., out West to Montana or Canada or Utah every August to subcontract for four months as a hunting guide. And he always brought Buddy, who had been Schmitt’s sidekick since he was 8 weeks old.

With another hunting season around the corner, the pair took a Sunday drive toward Whitney Reservoir, deep into the Uinta Mountains, to scout for big game. It was July 20, and the trip was going well. Schmitt had rescued an elk fawn from a bear trap and also spotted a large buck. Trying to get a better look at the buck, Schmitt steered his Ranger onto a trail about four miles into the forest that he said he’s “been on a million times.”

Quickly, though, he realized the trail had become unsafe over the winter. He decided to backtrack and shifted the Ranger into reverse. Before he even put his foot on the accelerator, Schmitt felt the back end start to slip down the incline.

“I knew it was going to flip, and I tried to jump out,” Schmitt said. “And upon trying to jump out, it started to roll, and it took my body with it.”

Schmitt believes the machine rolled over him twice before it spit him out a quarter of the way down the steep hill. It rolled about 15 more times before coming to a rest in a heap in a dry creek bed. The frame was contorted. The roof had been ripped off. The tires were flung dozens of feet away.

Buddy had been inside a crate in the back of the Ranger. The crate was nowhere to be seen. But there Buddy was, standing in front of Schmitt, wagging his stubby tail, not a scratch on him.

Schmitt hadn’t been so fortunate.

He didn’t know the extent of his injuries, but when he put weight on his right leg to stand, his ankle popped and he collapsed back to the ground. Then he looked at his left leg and couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing: His foot was folded back and his lower leg was skewed at a strange angle.

Even on healthy legs, it would have been difficult to stand on the incline. In his state, it would be impossible. So, Schmitt opted to roll down to the wreckage instead. Along the way, he hoped he would spot his satellite phone, or his radio or his cellphone, or at very least the gun he carried to scare away bears — anything he could use to signal for help.

“I had everything you could imagine,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter when it just gets flung off of you.”

The one usable thing he found? A small roll of duct tape. Through the tumult, it remained stuck inside the Ranger’s center console.

Schmitt sized up his situation: “I have no communication. I’m screwed. I’m going to have to drag myself out, as painful as that is.”

First, though, he had to set his broken leg.

The breaks

Schmitt wasn’t just some tourist lost in the woods. His years of guiding and backcountry exploration had left him uniquely qualified to deal with his perilous predicament.

He was so familiar with the old road that he knew he had to make six stream crossings before he would reach his truck. He knew to drink only from the most rapidly moving sections of those streams to mitigate the chances of contracting giardia. And, he had experience with self-administered wilderness first aid.

“If you don’t know how to literally drag yourself out at the end of the day, then probably don’t go out there,” Schmitt said, “because you’re going to die.”

Schmitt knew he needed to survive, even if only to make sure Buddy made it out alive. He found a straight piece of metal that had broken off the Ranger, scooted over to it and set his broken leg on top of it. Then, he pulled.

“I was way more scared to lose my leg than to rebreak that back,” Schmitt said of his rationalization for putting himself through that pain. “I was terrified.”

He created a splint with a mostly straight and sturdy stick and affixed it to the side of his leg with his belt and, of course, the duct tape.

By then, the sun had begun to set. So Schmitt called Buddy over and switched on the walnut-sized light on his collar. With just a crescent moon overhead, it would be their only light source for the next 10 hours as they lurched through the dark forest.

Crawling through the night

It didn’t take long for the adrenaline to wear off. Shock, fatigue and disorientation took its place.

Schmitt started the long journey to his truck by scooching backward, using his arms to drag his body down the road. Later, spooked by animal sounds he heard in the forest, he turned onto his belly and, with a rock in each hand for protection against the gravel and the wildlife, began to crawl. His ankle flopped helplessly behind him, and he could feel the bone shards grinding against one another. Ahead of him, Buddy zigzagged back and forth, picking up scents on the wind.

Their progress was glacial. At the second stream crossing, Schmitt convinced himself it was the fifth one. When a bend in the road jogged his memory, Schmitt broke down; they still had so far to travel.

They stopped often. Sometimes sleep would overtake Schmitt, but he would always be jolted back awake by the sensation of Buddy’s black nose nudging his head. When Schmitt felt like he just couldn’t go on, Buddy would lie down on the road 20 feet ahead of him. Compelled by the dog’s forlorn look, Schmitt would find the energy to scoot over to comfort his friend.

“I would pet him, and then he’d go 20 feet more,” Schmitt recalled. “And now I know he was just helping me, step by step.”

When daylight broke the next morning, Schmitt called it the “worst sunrise I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” It meant he hadn’t been crawling for three or four hours, like he’d thought, but closer to 10. The adrenaline kicked in, though, when the sunlight illuminated his truck in the distance.

Thankfully, he’d left his keys inside it.

An unexpected visitor

Yenni Saiz was putting yard games out in front of the Oakley Diner, as the 19-year-old waitress usually does to prepare for the 8 a.m. breakfast crowd, when the mud-colored Toyota pulled up next to her. The man inside rolled down his window, and Saiz grew nervous.

“You can tell he was in pain,” said Saiz, a Weber State student and Oakley resident, “and he had scratches on his face. He had a dog in the back seat, too.”

Schmitt had driven his broken body and best friend more than half an hour to the diner, the nearest place he thought might be open so early. He asked Saiz to call 911 and relayed to her the details of his ordeal and his injuries. Four minutes later, paramedics were on the scene.

Schmitt was loaded into an ambulance bound for Park City Hospital. Buddy had to stay behind. But the Oakley Fire Station kept him until Schmitt’s mom flew in the next day from New York to collect him.

Schmitt spent a week in the hospital while doctors inserted a rod in his broken leg and gave his ribs time to heal. On his final day, the nurses gave Schmitt’s mom, Mel Lenz, who is also a nurse, the go-ahead to bring Buddy to the hospital. The dog could barely be restrained from climbing into bed with Schmitt.

“He cried. I cried,” Schmitt said. “It was pretty wild.”

Both are back at home in Ogden now. Schmitt, who is uninsured, is trying to distract himself from his mounting medical bills by managing his welding fabrication company and committing himself to his physical therapy. His ambitious goal is to be guiding again by early September.

As for Buddy, he has all the bones — and all the cool, clean water — a dog could want. And, Schmitt said, he always will.

“He’s the little man that got me out of there for sure,” Schmitt said. “If he wasn’t there, I probably wouldn’t have made it mentally, spiritually.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help Schmitt pay for medical expenses and loss of equipment. As of Wednesday, the fund had received more than $20,000 in donations.

Note to readers • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

The post 3 way-too-early Utah Jazz trade candidates in 2025-26 season appeared first on ClutchPoints.

The Utah Jazz made their intentions loud and clear this offseason: the rebuild is in full swing. Gone are the veterans who once formed the foundation of the locker room: Jordan Clarkson bought out, Collin Sexton shipped to Charlotte, and John Collins moved in a three-team deal to the Clippers. These weren’t subtle, cosmetic changes. They were sweeping, identity-defining moves designed to create more opportunity for the franchise’s young core and maximize draft capital flexibility in the seasons to come.

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In return, Utah didn’t just take back picks or prospects; they acquired functional veterans like Jusuf Nurkić, Kevin Love, and Kyle Anderson. These players serve two purposes: stabilize a roster now dominated by first- and second-year players, and potentially become trade assets themselves down the line.

With the Jazz in asset-accumulation mode, no veteran outside of rookie-scale contracts should feel completely safe. That’s why it’s worth examining three early trade candidates for the 2025-26 season, players who could be shipped out for picks, prospects, or to facilitate bigger deals before the deadline.

Jusuf Nurkić: The reliable big with an expiring clock

When Utah landed Jusuf Nurkić in the Collin Sexton trade, the move was framed as a veteran stabilizer for a young locker room. The 30-year-old center still has plenty left in the tank: he’s a bruiser in the paint, a solid rebounder, and a capable passer out of the high post. But in the context of Utah’s rebuild, Nurkić is less a long-term fit and more a placeholder until a younger big emerges.

Utah approached its first of two fall scrimmages with a bit of caution.

The majority of the scrimmage for the first-teamers was “thud work” and didn’t include live tackling, with “live work” for the second-teamers.

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While there’s certainly time for physicality, and it’s something that Utah has incorporated into practices, coaches felt the best approach for the opening scrimmage of fall camp was to ease up on the starters and reduce the risk of injuries.

“We just felt it was the best approach for the first scrimmage,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. “Twos got all the live work … so got some good teaching tape and I think we’re in a good place right now, 10 practices in after today and 15 more to go and we’ll be ready to play.”

The first scrimmage of fall camp is an important time for coaches and players alike, and after seeing the team in a game-like setting, roster decisions can start to be made.

That includes the wide receiver group.

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Receivers

Whittingham said Monday that it feels like they’ve identified the top seven or eight receivers, the ones that will travel with the team to road games and the receivers that Utah will sink all of their practice reps into as the team moves forward in fall camp.

One of those players is Larry Simmons, the post-spring transfer from Southern Miss. Quarterback Devon Dampier mentioned that Simmons, who caught 27 balls for 421 yards and a score last season, had a “very big day” during Saturday’s scrimmage.

At another key position battle —starting outside cornerback — Blake Cotton is emerging.

“Blake Cotton, I’d say he’s got the edge right now,” Whittingham said.

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The 6-foot-2, 190-pound UC Davis transfer totaled 25 tackles and two pass breakups a season ago and has been locked in a very competitive battle between Don Saunders, Rock Caldwell and others.

Whoever gets the nod will start opposite Scooby Davis at outside corner. Smith Snowden will play nickel, but also play on the outside at times when Utah plays two cornerbacks.

Running backs

Another place where the depth chart has been whittled down is at running back, where Washington State transfer Wayshawn Parker and New Mexico transfer NaQuari Rogers have established themselves at the two top running backs.

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Both players share a similar build — Parker is 5-foot-10, 206 pounds; Rogers is 5-10, 205 — and the longtime Utes coach described both players as having similar styles.

“They both do an outstanding job of picking up blitzes, they’re not afraid, they stick their nose in there,” he said. “They’re north and south guys, so they run behind their pads well, get upfield. They both have good hands, so they’re very similar. NaQuari just has more experience; Wayshawn’s just a sophomore.”

Parker ran for 735 yards and four touchdowns on 137 carries in his freshman season, while Rogers totaled 382 yards and five touchdowns on 74 carries his junior season.

“They’re interchangeable as the one. We’re also having some good production from Daniel Bray, Raycine Guillory a couple of freshmen that they have a lot of promise and of course Devon is like a running back back there at times, so he’s adding to what we’re doing and then we’ve got guys running the speed sweeps, the wide receivers that are supplementary,” Whittingham said.

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Those receivers that could factor into the running game include Nate Johnson and Hunter Andrews.

QB2

As far as the backup quarterback competition goes, Utah still hasn’t made a decision, but one will come soon, possibly after Friday’s second and final scrimmage at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

The two contenders for the spot, sophomore Isaac Wilson and freshman Byrd Ficklin, both had their moments at Saturday’s scrimmage, but both also made mistakes, and the competition continues.

Wilson’s experience playing in nine games last season (1,510 yards, 10 TD, 11 INT, 56.4% completion) is working in his favor against Ficklin, who was impressive in high school but unproven at the collegiate level.

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“Obviously Isaac is the one that has the Division I experience, has helped him and will help him if he’s called upon this year. We’re not sure how Byrd will react in a game situation, just a true freshman, and so that works in Isaac’s favor as far as the experience factor,” Whittingham said.

Ficklin, meanwhile, has a game that more heavily incorporates the quarterback run and plays similarly to Dampier.

“Byrd is a guy that is very mature, doesn’t seem to flinch when his number’s called, when he gets his opportunities, and so whichever one emerges as the guy, we’ll have confidence in him,” Whittingham said.

At the defensive tackle position, where Utah will need some true freshmen to help out in the rotation, Whittingham highlighted Pupu Sepulona and Karson Kaufusi as standing out.

“They’re all doing things well and they’re all coming along and learning and getting better each day. We think that we’re going to have some real superstars emerge from that group,” Whittingham said.

The first game of the Alex Jensen era of Utah basketball is one step closer to reality.

The school announced the nonconference schedule for the Runnin’ Utes in the 2025-26 season, and it includes a pair of exhibition games, eight home games, three neutral-site matchups and a pair of road contests.

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Who is Utah basketball playing in its nonconference schedule?

• Oct. 17 — Nevada | exhibition

• Oct. 24 — at Oregon | exhibition

• Nov. 3 — San Jose State

• Nov. 8 — Weber State

• Nov. 10 — Holy Cross

• Nov. 15 — Sam Houston State

• Nov. 18 — Purdue Fort Wayne*

• Nov. 20 — Cal Poly

• Nov. 25 — vs. Grand Canyon&

• Nov. 26 — vs. Iowa/Ole Miss&

• Dec. 2 — at California

• Dec. 6 — Cal-Baptist

• Dec. 13 — vs. Mississippi State^

• Dec. 20 — Eastern Washington

• Dec. 29 — at Washington

Note: * at Huntsman Center as part of Acrisure Series; & at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, California, as part of Acrisure Series; ^ at Delta Center.

What stands out about Utah’s nonconference schedule?

• The schedule features a pair of exhibition matchups, including a trip to former Pac-12 rival Oregon.

• The Utes will begin regular-season action with six straight games at the Huntsman Center.

• Utah hosts Weber State — the first time the in-state schools have played since 2019. It’s part of a three-game series with the Wildcats, as Standard-Examiner’s Brett Hein first reported in May. The other games will be played in 2026 and 2028, according to Hein.

• This year’s multi-team event (MTE) for the Utes will take place in California at the Acrisure Series, where Utah will face Grand Canyon in its first year in the Mountain West Conference before taking on either Iowa or Ole Miss in its second matchup at the event.

• The Utes’ two true road games will both take place against former Pac-12 opponents at California and Washington.

• Utah will also face the SEC’s Mississippi State in a neutral-site matchup at the Delta Center. The two teams played a neutral-site game last year, when the Bulldogs beat the Utes at Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.

Who will Utah play during Big 12 play?

Here’s a look at who Utah will play this season during its Big 12 schedule. Game times and dates will be released closer to the start of the season.

• Home and away: Arizona State, BYU, Colorado

• Home only: Arizona, Houston, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF

• Away only: Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, West Virginia