Author: Jesse

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah (ABC4) — The Netflix film ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ has exploded in popularity since its release, and one store in South Jordan got in on celebrating the success of the movie.

The Kaeguli K-Pop Shop in South Jordan held a “Kpop Demon Hunters Bash” on Saturday, hosting a screening of the film, along with food provided by Yummy’s Korean BBQ and merchandise.

The event was held to celebrate the popularity of the film, which was released on Netflix last month. One of the songs from the movie, “Golden”, sung by the fictional K-Pop group Huntrix, recently reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Neisha Sykes, co-owner of the Kaeguli K-Pop, says the popularity of the movie shows just how much the K-pop genre is growing in the United States.

“It’s amazing to see the popularity of K-pop because of the movie,” Sykes said. “We have always loved K-pop, and it’s wonderful to bring in new fans and share with them the wonderful open community we have here.”

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The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is a representative survey of 10,000 women and men conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), generating what is widely regarded as the highest-quality data on sexual violence in the country. In both its 2012 and 2016/2017 data releases, statistical comparisons of respondents show that the state of Utah had some of the lowest sexual violence rates in the nation.

That doesn’t mean Utah does not have a problem with sexual violence, which is a heartbreaking epidemic throughout the U.S. and world. It just means the best data in the nation has shown repeatedly that the Rocky Mountain state appears to be doing measurably better than other states in the country.

Despite this data coming out 8 years ago, this still isn’t something widely known. One year ago, when the Deseret News compiled available data documenting areas where Utah was leading the nation in a positive way, nothing was included about abuse and sexual violence.

That’s because for years, we’ve heard that Utah stands out in a particularly troubling way when it comes to different kinds of violence against women.

It wasn’t until this spring that we began to look more closely into these numbers ourselves. We came to realize that certain data sources were often being overlooked in public discourse, while problematic FBI data continues to be widely cited as a reliable measure to compare states.

But the biggest discovery came when we reviewed the state-by-state comparisons available in The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey — an “ongoing, nationally representative survey that assesses experiences of sexual violence, stalking and intimate partner violence among adult women and men aged 18 years old or older in the United States.”

How Utah measures against other states

This CDC survey “provides critical state-level violence victimization prevalence data that are not available elsewhere,” says Kathleen Basile, associate director for science in the Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC, who was involved in administering the survey. Compared with other surveys that may only have a question or two on sexual violence, Basile calls this survey “the most comprehensive look at this problem.”

The Utah-specific findings were especially striking. According to this comprehensive data set, Utah women had the lowest “lifetime prevalence of sexual violence victimization” (36.9%). That was six points lower than the next lowest state of Texas (42.7%), 17 points lower than the national average (54.3%), and as many as 28-30 points lower than Wyoming (63%), Alaska (65.4%) and Washington D.C. (67.1%).

In more specific examinations across the United States, the lifetime prevalence among Utah women were:

• Eighth lowest for contact sexual violence by an intimate partner — rape, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact (15.5%). This was 4 points lower than the U.S. average (19.6%) and over half as much as the highest state, Nevada (32%).
• Third lowest for attempted or completed rape of any kind (15.8%) after North Dakota and South Dakota (14% and 14.6%). This was 11 points lower than the national average (26.8%) and 26 points lower than the highest state, Wyoming (42.1%).
• Fourth lowest for completed alcohol/drug-facilitated rape (8.1%) among the 40 states that monitor this variable, tied with Kansas (with Idaho being the lowest at 5.4%). Utah’s percentage is 4 points lower than the U.S. average (12.2%), and over half as much as the highest state, Arkansas (17.7%).

Broader analyses of sexual aggression found the lifetime prevalence among Utah women was:

• Second lowest for unwanted sexual contact (32.4%), after North Dakota (31%). This was 15 points below the national average (47.6%) and nearly half the rate of the highest state, Alaska (62.5%).
• Sixth lowest for sexual coercion (17.6%). This was 6 points lower than the U.S. average (23.6%), and over half as much as the highest state, Nevada (36.8%) and the District of Columbia (39.5%).

The statistics for Utah women across different types of physical violence were also striking, including the fact that Utah women had a lifetime prevalence that was:

• Lowest in the nation for any physical violence by an intimate partner (26.4%). This was 16 points below the national average (42%) and 30 points below the rate of the highest state, Nevada (56.8%).
• Lowest of any state for being slapped, pushed or shoved (23.3%). This was nearly 15 points below the U.S. average (38.9%) and more than half as much as the highest state, Nevada (54.3%).
• Fifth lowest for stalking by an intimate partner (8.7%) and third lowest for stalking victimization generally (21.9%). This was 5 to 10 points lower than the respective U.S. averages (13.5%/31.2%) and 13 to 26 points lower than the highest states of Georgia and Arkansas.
• Lowest of any state for severe physical violence by an intimate partner (17.7%). This was 15 points below the national average (32.5%) and 32 points below the highest state, Nevada (49.2%).

In terms of emotional and verbal abuse, the lifetime prevalence among Utah women was:

• Lowest in the nation (34.9%) for any psychological aggression by an intimate partner. This was 15 points lower than the U.S. average (49.4%) and 29 points lower than the highest state, Arkansas (63.6%).
• Lowest in the nation for the subtype of “expressive aggression” — more spontaneous, impulsive violence “driven by emotions, such as anger, rage, or frustration.” Utah women’s rate of victimization (19.5%) was 10 points below the national average (29.4%) and more than half the rate of the highest state, Alaska (42.4%).
• Lowest in the nation for the subtype of “coercive control and entrapment” (32%). This was 14 points below the national average (46.2%) and 29 points less than the highest state, Arkansas (60.7%).

When the data for all these different violence types are combined, here are the findings:

• Utah women experienced the lowest rates in the nation for physical violence, stalking victimization by an intimate partner, and/or contact sexual violence (rape, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact). The rate at which Utah women surveyed said they experienced any of these types of violence (31.7%) was 15 points lower than the national average (47.3%) and 30 points lower than the highest state, Nevada (61.8%).
• Utah women were also lowest in the nation for the combined “related impact” of these different types of intimate partner violence (including “being fearful, concerned for safety, any post–traumatic stress disorder symptoms, etc.” This rate of 27.1% was tied with Hawaii (27.2%), while being 14 points lower than the U.S. average (41%) and 29 points lower than the highest states of Arkansas (55.9%) and Nevada (56.1%).

In addition to asking women about their experiences as adults, researchers asked women to reflect on experiences when they were younger. In terms of the prevalence of earlier sexual violence, Utah women were:

• Seventh lowest for first contact sexual violence before age 18 (25%), which includes rape, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact. This rate was 6.5 points lower than the national average (31.5%) and 19 points lower than the highest states of Alaska (43.7%) and Arkansas (43.8%).
• Ninth lowest for first rape attempt or completed rape victimization before age 18 (9.2%). This was 4 points lower than the U.S. average (13.1%) and nearly a third of Arkansas (28%).
• Eighth lowest for first victimization of either physical violence, stalking by an intimate partner, or contact sexual violence before Age 18. The Utah women’s rate (10%) was 3 points lower than the national average (12.8%) and half of the highest states, Nevada (19.8%) and Alaska (20.1%).

In sum, every state-wide abuse prevalence chart in the survey showed Utah among the lowest 10 states — with only one exception. The measure of “Lifetime Prevalence of Verbal Sexual Harassment in a Public Place” confirmed Utah women were the 12th lowest at 26.3%, 6 points lower than the national average (30.4%).

When considered all together, no other state performs so well across these various sub-scales. The next closest states with relatively lower sexual violence rates are Kansas, Hawaii, Iowa, South Dakota and Texas.

None of this is to minimize the staggering scope of the sexual violence problem facing every state in the country, including Utah. In this rapidly growing Rocky Mountain state with a population of over 3.5 million, even conservative estimates suggest that many thousands of teenage girls and adult women currently living in Utah have experienced some form of sexual violence.

“Either way,” emphasized Susan Madsen, the founding director of the Utah Women & Leadership Project, “whether we’re above or below the national average, if there’s anybody that is experiencing violence, we need to be concerned.”

Madsen is right. These numbers do not “give Utah a pass,” even if they do clarify the scope of the problem. “You can’t change violence rates until you shine a light on the problem,” she added.

Why so different from FBI data?

Deseret News interviewed two of the main researchers at the CDC behind this national survey to understand why its findings are so different compared to the FBI data on sexual violence.

Sharon G. Smith, a behavioral scientist with the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, explained that a criminal justice question like “Were you ever raped?” can be harder to answer than people may realize.

That’s why the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey uses “behaviorally-specific questions,” she said, which don’t rely on participant interpretation, and which “can facilitate disclosure and improve the accuracy of the estimates.”

Kathleen Basile, also part of the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention and Control explained, “So if you ask one question, they may say, ‘I don’t know if that happened,’ but if you ask three or four or five, they start remembering, ‘oh yeah, something happened back when I was younger.’”

Compared with asking about only recent victimization, Basile also emphasized the value of asking about someone’s lifetime experience “because sometimes people are more comfortable talking about something that happened in their past rather than something that happened just recently in the last year or so.”

“It’s hard for someone to admit that ‘yes, I was a rape victim,’” agreed Julie Valentine, a University of Utah professor and longtime forensic nurse who has worked with rape survivors for decades and led the creation of one of the world’s best sexual assault archival databases.

Valentine, who is called to the hospital to speak with victims, said often victims won’t even use the word “rape.” Instead, they’ll say “something really bad happened to me on my date last night. And then they’ll describe what happened, but it’s very rare that a victim would say those words.”

“So, there are different reasons,” Basile said, why this survey “would have more disclosure.”

Anonymity is huge

Leslie Miles, a professor in the BYU nursing department who has studied sexual violence for years, also emphasized that “the FBI is only looking at police reports. And there’s a lot of shame, a lot of blame, and (victims) don’t disclose.”

Given how fearful many are of “public shaming,” Miles added, “it’s going to skew your FBI data.” By comparison, she said, “people are more likely to disclose on a survey where it’s anonymous.”

“That’s the difference in what you have in numbers,” Miles said, referring to the contrast in FBI and CDC numbers.

According to experts we’ve interviewed for this report, it’s this anonymity above all — without any required identification, public disclosure, legal complexity and involvement in the criminal justice system — that makes these national datasets especially reliable compared with arrest rates.

“People will acknowledge that they have been victims of a crime to an anonymous survey, even if they did not report the crimes to police,” noted an early report of the The National Criminal Justice Commission, citing Samuel Walker and other criminologists. (Earlier anonymous surveys of sexual violence in Utah in 2005 and 2007 were likewise celebrated for having “provided confirmation of the limitations of relying upon officially reported statistics”).

“You always have to look at the methodology,” agreed Madsen when asked about the same discrepancy. “It’s just the way people are measuring things.” Depending on whether something is reported or anonymously gathered, she tells Deseret News, “you tend to see some different things.”

2012 survey findings on Utah

These are not anomalies from a single CDC survey in 2016-2017. From the same national survey in 2012, here are some of Utah’s findings:

• 4th lowest lifetime prevalence of specifically sexual violence victimization with someone a person knows (31.1%). This was five points lower than the U.S. average (36.3%) and 16 points lower than the highest state of Oregon (47.5%).
• Lowest of all the states for any type of completed or attempted rape (12.2%). This was 7 points below the national average (19.1) and more than half of Oregon’s rate (26.3%).
• Lowest out of 46 states who recorded completed drug/alcohol-facilitated rape (4.6%). This was half the national average (9%) and one third the rate in the highest state of Oregon (15.4%).
• 7th lowest for sexual coercion (10.3%). This was 3 points lower than the U.S. average (13.2) and half as much as Oregon (20%).

It is too early to know if 2025 data from the same national survey will show similar patterns.

BYU professor Justin Dyer said the results are not a surprise.

“It fits with other things we know about Utah — the benefits of faith and family generally — including other research about violence and religiosity. So, none of this is particularly surprising.”

Madsen has also spoken about Utah becoming “a national leader in how to implement positive change for girls and women.” In the recent interview with Deseret News, she shared her aspiration that the state will pursue even more opportunities to be “different than any other state,” even “a place where more girls and women can thrive in any setting.”

These findings above also align with the broader international research on vulnerabilities for sexual violence against women and children.

A Deseret News review of 500 studies found that sincere, healthy religious faith — and the habits spirituality often promotes, such as lower alcohol and drug use, fewer risky sexual behaviors, and greater emphasis on marriage, education, and financial responsibility — can have a protective effect. Many of these patterns are more common in Utah.

Understanding conflicting data

Not all data aligns with this understanding of Utah. That begins with the FBI numbers on sexual violence, which shows Utah consistently in a tier of states with comparatively higher rates of rape.

It’s these official crime numbers — usually without any mention of The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey — which have been the central focus of public discourse on sexual violence in Utah over the last decade, showing up regularly in public and media conversation, academic reviews and reports, and even on official state websites and documents.

Utah isn’t the only state whose FBI statistics paint a different picture than the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Kansas, North Dakota, Kentucky, South Carolina, and New Mexico are all in the 20 lowest states in terms of sexual violence on this survey, but in the FBI data, they join Utah as some of the worst.

The FBI “strongly discourages” comparisons of locations based on these numbers. The discrepancies could reflect that certain states are more successful than others in encouraging disclosure, accountability and reporting.

Yet there are two other high-quality studies showing contrary results with child sexual abuse. That includes data from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System showing Utah 3 points higher than the national average in sexual-related “adverse childhood experiences”. And the nationally representative 2021 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey data also shows Utah 3.5 points higher than the national average in teenage girls who reported having “experienced sexual violence by anyone” in the past year.

This latter gap, that showed up during pandemic data collection, mostly went away in 2023. Drilling down to “sexual dating violence” and “forced sexual intercourse” in 2021, instead of relying on the broad umbrella figure, also shows Utah lower than the national average in 2021.

In the earlier 2020 survey, Utah also had a uniquely high level of ACEs responses submitted — with 9,155 respondents willing to share about past abuse representing the 3rd highest of any state. Utah’s response rate of 55.5 was also higher than most, with only six states better.

Similar to the FBI rape data, this suggests Utah could perhaps be having more success in measuring what’s actually happening. Utah has a dedicated in-house survey center at the Department of Health and Human Services that averages 10,500 completed Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System surveys in each of the last 5 years, according to department data experts. Their experience in survey design and interviewing, they told Deseret News, “plays a significant role in our ability to get high numbers of completed surveys compared to other states.”

The importance of this proactive data apparatus in Utah may be heightened at a time when it’s become “increasingly difficult to collect data in U.S. national surveys including the YRBS,” according to Columbia University researcher John J. Santelli and colleagues, who highlight “steady declines in school and student response rates” to federal surveys over a 12-year study period.

During this same period, Utah made notable strides in raising awareness of sexual violence (especially this last decade), which may lead to increased willingness to disclose in surveys, particularly among youth.

Having said all this, we cannot rule out the possibility that Utah is protecting adult women better than younger girls. That would be a puzzling contrast with both the risk factor and NSVIS numbers already reviewed, but ought to be held with humility and openness.

As a final qualifier, it’s important to note that Utah respondents in each survey above may also be describing abuse elsewhere earlier in their life. Adverse Childhood Experience analyses, for instance, “reflect the experiences of adults living in that jurisdiction, but do not necessarily represent the jurisdiction in which the ACE occurred.”

This is true of the national CDC survey as well, but may be especially influential in surveys asking people to reflect back on their childhood. Utah is a popular destination for new residents, with high rates of domestic migration compared to many other states, particularly in recent years.

Sexual violence is a problem everywhere

In the end, how Utah compares to other states matters far less than the fact that sexual violence remains a very serious and ongoing problem for individuals, families and communities virtually everywhere, including in Utah.

“We all need to work together on this,” said Madsen, underscoring the urgency of “moving heaven and earth to protect women and children.”

That’s where our focus should be — gathering people of all backgrounds, liberal and conservative, religious and nonreligious, to work together unitedly for the eradication of violence against women and children.

If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, confidential support is available 24/7:

• Utah Rape & Sexual Assault Crisis Line: 1-888-421-1100
• Utah Domestic Violence LINKLine (also offering sexual violence support): 1-800-897-LINK (5465)
• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), rainn.org

Utah State fans received very unfortunate news for the upcoming football season. As of August 15th, free safety Ike Larsen, a leader on this defense, has been suspended for six weeks due to a violation of team rules. Larsen has 217 career tackles, two sacks, nine tackles for loss, nine interceptions, and 17 pass breakups as an Aggie. This will likely mean that Ike Larsen will miss the first game of the season and the entire month of September. This means that Ike Larsen will miss games against UTEP, Texas A&M, Air Force, McNee State, and, quite possibly, Vanderbilt as well. The Aggies never had much of a chance to take on Texas A&M, but the Aggies could have certainly used Larsen against UTEP, Air Force, and Vanderbilt. It seems unlikely that Ike Larsen will get the opportunity to play against Vanderbilt because that comes one day after the six-week suspension is up. So, it seems that the earliest that Ike Larsen will be able to return to the field is against Hawaii on October 11th. The report from Utah State (via Jason Walker, who reached out to the university) states that Ike Larsen has been placed on a short-term suspension from the team, effective immediately (as of August 15th).

A talented high school gymnast helped put his Utah coach on the national stage, as one of his few students who frequently competed in out-of-state and international meets. But while they were away from home, the coach was secretly filming the teen’s genitals as he was undressed.

And Adam Richard Jacobs did the same to dozens of other children and some adults over several months, according to prosecutors, via a hidden camera he has admitted placing in a restroom at USA Gymnastics World in Woods Cross.

Jacobs is now awaiting sentencing later this month on 17 state-level charges related to videos he made at the gym, after being sentenced in federal court Thursday for filming the teen gymnast outside Utah.

“You put trust in the fact that this adult is going to take care of your son,” that teen’s mother told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview. “That’s where that huge breach of trust happened.”

The Tribune generally does not name sexual abuse victims without their permission and is not naming the mother to protect the identity of her son, who was a minor when Jacobs filmed him.

Jacobs, formerly a partial owner of USA Gymnastics World, placed a hidden camera in the boy’s hotel rooms and their bathrooms to produce child sexual abuse materials during trips to Texas and Florida, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Utah.

He pleaded guilty to one federal count of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Two other counts — of production and possession of child pornography — were dismissed under a plea bargain.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Howard Nielson sentenced Jacobs, 35, to 10 years in a Texas prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

Before Nielson handed down the sentence, Jacobs cried as he read from a written statement, at times struggling to speak. He told the courtroom he felt “ashamed” and “embarrassed” by the “damage that I have done.”

“I made really bad decisions to hurt people that I loved and was meant to protect,” Jacobs said. “I betrayed the trust and invaded the privacy of people I deeply care about.”

In a separate plea statement in the state court case, Jacobs admitted to placing a camera disguised as a USB charger in a public restroom at the USA Gymnastics World gym between January 2022 and March 2023. He said he intentionally pointed the camera at the toilet to capture images of children in various stages of undress.

“I wanted to capture these images and videos for my own sexual gratification,” Jacobs said in the statement.

Carl Hollan, who is prosecuting both the federal and state cases against Jacobs, spoke at the federal sentencing about his betrayal of the young gymnasts and their families.

“The coach stands in a unique position in our society, because he has the opportunity and the ability to guide children’s lives and to build them up and help them become something better than they are,” Hollan said.

“Parents place great trust in coaches,” he said, “but that same hand that can support a child who’s learning this skill can also cause significant harm to children, and that’s what we’ve seen in this case.”

‘You wouldn’t do that to somebody you love’

At Thursday’s sentencing, several victims in the federal and state cases and family members sat quietly in the courtroom, many with stoic expressions. One victim looked down and shook his head while Jacobs read his statement.

“I feel like you wouldn’t do that to somebody you love, anyways,” the victim in the remaining federal charge told The Tribune after the hearing. Reacting to Jacobs’ apology, the teen said, “I feel like it was more for himself.”

His mother said that on some trips, Jacobs and her son stayed in Airbnbs together instead of in separate hotel rooms. “I wasn’t aware that this was even something that was happening,” she said. “I think that just gave him ample time to set up cameras in his room.”

She also pointed to the intense relationships that competitive gymnasts have with coaches.

“Gymnastics is kind of a strange sport,” she explained. “It’s almost like they spend more time with their coaches than they spend with you, and you’re not there for a four-hour period every day to watch them.”

Dozens of children and adults filmed

The restroom camera was discovered by a gym employee who alerted police, and Jacobs was arrested in March 2023. The out-of-state images were discovered on devices police seized from the coach, the mother said.

In files from the restroom camera, prosecutors found videos of 120 different people secretly filmed at the gym, Hollan said.

Prosecutors were “very selective” in deciding which recordings to include in the original 33 state court charges, Hollan said, ultimately narrowing it down to 28 minors and five adults.

“We didn’t want to charge anything that there was even a question about,” Hollan said.

Under a plea agreement, however, some of the state charges have been dismissed. Jacobs has pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting at least 15 minors and the voyeurism of two adults, and to recording all of them without their knowledge.

Before finalizing the deal, Hollan said, prosecutors contacted each victim. Many had expressed a desire to move on, while others said they no longer wanted to be involved.

“There’s no additional benefit we would get from him pleading to 28 counts that we don’t get from him pleading [to] the 15,” Hollan said. “So the cost of putting those children through that trauma is not worth any benefit that you could otherwise receive.”

Jacobs is scheduled to be sentenced in the state case on Aug. 21.

Under the plea agreements, Hollan said, the federal and state sentences must be considered by the judges separately. Jacobs could serve as little as 10 years if the state sentence runs concurrently with the federal one, or up to 30 additional years if the judge orders it to run consecutively.

In federal court Thursday, Jacobs’ defense attorney, Curtis Tuttle, told the court that his client is “remorseful” and agreed to plead guilty because he did not want to subject the victims to a trial or further court proceedings.

The mother of the boy in the federal case said the sentence came as no surprise, since it had been discussed at length in advance.

“I think the biggest thing was just emotionally, just kind of seeing him again after two and a half years,” she said. “I think that was what was hard.”

Her son said he’s ready to move forward. After more than two years of waiting for a resolution, he said, “it was good to get closure.”

This is the second article in a three-part Deseret News series on sexual violence in Utah, following the first article, “It’s time to stop relying on FBI data alone to compare sexual violence rates between U.S. states.”

Even a single instance of abuse is too many.

University of Utah professor Julie Valentine, a forensic nurse who created one of the world’s best sexual assault archival databases, describes how sexual assault often “shatters people’s worldviews,” echoing Israeli researchers who define rape as “an act that denies an individual’s humanity.”

This is why, on a question as important as sexual violence against children and adults, it’s important to learn as much as we can from as many sources as we can. “You can’t make changes unless you can know and understand what’s going on,” said Leslie Miles, a researcher on sexual violence and professor at BYU’s College of Nursing.

When important data sources are missed, we may inadvertently reach inaccurate conclusions. For instance, over the past decade, claims have circulated suggesting there is an especially high risk of sexual violence for adolescent girls and adult women living in Utah compared with the rest of the country.

Many familiar with other data about the state have found this conclusion puzzling. When recently asked about allegations Utah was worse than other locations in terms of sexual violence, Professor Justin Dyer, who researches Utah youth, said, “such a claim seems out of step with what we already know in this area.”

Taking into account all the data

Like other important questions about Utah, so much depends on which information and data is being seriously considered (and which is not). Kathleen C. Basile, associate director for Science in the Division of Violence Prevention in the Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC, told the Deseret News, said “I think readers and those who are interested in this kind of (sexual violence) data should look at all the sources.”

Her colleague, Sharon G. Smith, also a behavioral scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC, likewise said that “using all of these data together helps give you a better picture of what the problem actually looks like.”

Utah researchers agree. Valentine said, “You have to always look at all of the studies,” and ask yourself, “where are they gathering this information?”

We have found three meaningful data sources that have frequently been overlooked in public discussions about sexual violence rates in Utah.

1. From crime figures to anonymous self-report

In the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, Utah in 2023 had 54.4 rapes reported to police per 100,000 inhabitants. Since there are only five states higher, numbers like this have frequently been compared with other states over the last decade.

Yet the FBI itself “strongly discourages” state-by-state comparisons based solely on these kinds of official crime statistics. With so many variable influences on both crime and willingness to report crime, higher and lower official figures cannot be simply taken at face value. Instead, we must also ask:

• Could lower criminal justice numbers reflect underreporting or gaps in how crimes are revealed, reported, or recorded, rather than a lower actual rate of violence in that area?
• Are higher official figures potentially reflecting higher objective levels of violence or indications of a community that, for a variety of reasons, has found different ways to encourage more accountability and disclosure.

For example, after work in 2017 to “create a climate where students will report,” BYU administrators were encouraged to see a rise in the number of students reporting sexual assaults — considering this “a sign that more of them trust changes made by the school and are getting the help they need.”

It’s this uncertainty around official crime figures that highlights the value of taking into account anonymous self-report measures that we’ve found offer a uniquely accurate glimpse into the more painful and sensitive experiences people go through.

“If we want to truly understand the scope of who’s affected by sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape, our most reliable (sources) are going to be the anonymous surveys,” Valentine said. “Because for a host of reasons, rape and sexual assault is the number one crime that is not reported.”

This nationally recognized expert on rape continued, “when you have these anonymous surveys, you know your numbers are going to be vastly different from if you’re looking at FBI Uniform Crime Reports.”

To gather these more anonymous self-report numbers across states, the CDC conducted a National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey first in 2012, then in 2016/2017. Tragically, over half all women in the United States reported some sexual violence (with over 67 million victims estimated nationally).

Because this survey of 10,000 American adults carefully samples representative people in each state, its comparisons across locations are more valid. In state-by-state comparisons, Utah had the lowest lifetime prevalence of sexual assault for any state, with approximately 37% of Utah women surveyed reporting an experience with sexual assault at some point in their life. This was six points lower than the next lowest state of Texas (43%) and 17 points lower than the national average (54%).

When asked why this figure was so different from other available crime data, CDC researcher Kathleen Basile pointed again to the limitations in reported FBI data. “Most survivors or victims don’t always think of their experiences as crimes,” she explained, “particularly sexual violence and intimate partner violence, where usually the victim and perpetrator know each other well.”

That’s why Basile said “if you frame the questioning and the measurement in a crime context, you will get less reporting and less disclosure.” By contrast, she believes the fact the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey frames questions as a health survey means “you get more disclosure, more reporting and higher prevalence.”

Basile also said anonymity is another reason “why there’s more disclosure in these types of surveys.”

Yet data obtained in anonymous surveys remains complex. Another self-report survey run by the CDC, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, gathers data on sexual-related “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs). By this metric, 15.5% of Utah adults in the 2020 survey and 14.3% of Utah adults from 2018, 2020 and 2022 surveys combined, recall some kind of experience of sexual abuse in their upbringing (both higher than the 12.6% national average, with states ranging between 8.6 and 18%).

This comparison, however, is complicated by the fact that states reported data anywhere from 2011 to 2020 — limiting the quality of the state-by-state comparisons, since Utah’s own ACEs data “changed significantly” over the years due to “changes in openness to reporting childhood adversity.”

That’s why Utah’s Public Health Indicator Based Information System refers to this dataset with a caution that “comparing data from different years across the country might not be the best approach.”

2. From statewide to community-specific

While generalized, statewide numbers for Utah get frequent attention, more specific analyses can raise new insights. For instance, if membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made someone more vulnerable to sexual assault, we would expect to see elevated rates of sexual violence in more Latter-day Saint heavy areas, all other things being equal.

That’s opposite of what available comparative data across Utah’s population centers suggests.

While FBI data shouldn’t be used as a definitive, stand-alone tool for comparing states, it may still offer useful insights when examining patterns within a single state or region.

In Utah, for instance, the rate of reported rape per 100,000 inhabitants in the more Latter-day Saint-heavy Provo/Utah/Orem metropolitan area is 40.8 per 100,000 people, lower than the Utah average. The Salt Lake City/Murray area is 65.3, the Ogden area is 48.7, and the St. George Metropolitan area is 44.3.

This data suggests that more Latter-day Saint-heavy metropolitan areas have lower rates of sexual violence in Utah.

In a similar way, if there is something about membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that prevents sexual assault, we would expect to see lower rates of sexual assaults at the Church’s universities, compared with other campuses.

That’s precisely what we find when we look at the latest 2023 data gathered by the U.S. Department of Education on sexual assault on American campuses. Brigham Young University-Provo reports .03 rapes per thousand students, while the University of Utah reports 4.96 per thousand students, and Utah Valley University and Utah State report .07 and .11, respectively. Looking outside of Utah, UCLA reports 1.54, while the University of Nevada in Las Vegas is .19.

3. From umbrella statistics to more precise measures

One widely cited finding from the 2021 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey is that 21.4% of Utah teenage girls surveyed reported having “experienced sexual violence by anyone” in the past year, which was 3.5 points higher than the 17.9% of teenage girls who report some kind of sexual violence in the U.S. as a whole.

Like the Utah ACEs data, this YRBS data was administered in fall of 2021 when the pandemic effects were lingering. With more high schoolers learning remotely these years, the sample may be skewed toward those physically present, since remote or at-home administrations didn’t occur. The fact that this gap between Utah and the national average reflected in the 2021 survey was sharply reduced after COVID (Utah 17.7,% U.S. 17% in 2023) seems to confirm a potential influence.

A research team led by John J. Santelli at Columbia University has also flagged a higher level of missing data in the 2021 CDC survey — with 29.5% of students with missing data on sexual questions in 2019, compared with 7% in 2011. Due to what they call a “crisis in participation,” Santelli’s team highlight the “possibility of bias” in this survey’s estimates of adolescent behavior and “raise serious concerns about the validity of trends” identified.

They go so far as to state openly that “the 2021 YRBS data should not be used by researchers to estimate changes in sexual experience and other adolescent behaviors in comparison to prior survey years without appropriate age adjustments or explanations.”

Even if the 2021 CDC numbers are accurate, it’s also the case that the concerning statistic in question is uniquely broad, bringing together under one umbrella a wide range of unwanted behaviors: touching, kissing and intercourse.

Clearly, any form of an unwanted romantic or sexual overture is a significant problem. But when this same 2021 analysis tightened the focus to asking specifically about “sexual dating violence” and “forced sexual intercourse,” Utah was in both cases lower than the national average in 2021 (and has been for most of the other years measuring each of these variables).

None of this is to argue that everything is OK in the state. Like elsewhere in the country, Utah continues to grapple with the growing consequences of sexualization online and its real-life impacts.

The University of Utah’s Julie Valentine is leading a case review analysis to understand more about the increase in strangulation taking place during sexual violence (with choking a frequent theme of modern online pornography). And the Utah’s Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice’s updated 2024 figures confirm a 97% increase between 2022 and 2024 when it comes to prison admissions for sex offenses in the state.

Better data, more improvement

Utah State professor, Susan Madsen, has spent a decade exploring ways to further elevate women and girls in Utah, culminating in the ambitious “Bolder Way Forward” initiative.

When significant problems have been identified in Utah, real change takes place. For instance, a 2016 analysis by Valentine found only 61.8% of rape kits being submitted by law enforcement to the state crime lab for testing. Legislation was passed the next year ensuring that close to 100% of rape kits move along to testing, according to Valentine.

That kind of swift systemic improvement arose directly from Valentine and her colleagues’ more comprehensive look at available forensic data between 2010 and 2022. Her team is currently facing barriers in creating a similar database for sexually abused children in the state, which she says could “really have a huge impact in the field.”

One nonprofit that monitors reform in this area now calls Utah a “Model of Bipartisan Cooperation on Rape Kit Reform” and reports on their website that “Utah has achieved all six pillars of rape kit reform.”

Better data, more unity

A deeper appreciation of data could invite broader unity in fighting abuse — one that recognizes these statistics are inherently complex, influenced by a wide array of different, interacting vulnerabilities.

Liliana Olvera-Arbon, executive director of Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, emphasizes the importance of holding onto the “hope that we can eliminate sexual violence. I do believe that.”

But in order to do that, she added, everyone in the community — not just “one entity” — will need to work together as a more unified “collective.”

“We don’t want to blame,” cautions BYU professor Leslie Miles. When her team finds something law enforcement can improve in a particular county, they work individually with that police department in a productive way.

“The only ones that have any blame are the perpetrators,” she added. Once research highlights a concerning pattern, her focus becomes: “How can we do this better?”

“If we’re not doing something right as a public or as mental health or as medical providers,” she adds, “then just tell us what we’re doing, and then let’s come up with a plan to improve.”

The Utah high school football season begins this week on the westside of the country, with several big matchups on tap in Week 1.

Many of the top teams will be in action with their sights set on starting their journey towards trying to win another state championship this fall. We go ahead and select the six Utah UHSAA state champions this fall.

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Class 6A: Corner Canyon

The Chargers are coming off a 13-1 season in which they won the UHSAA’s Class 6A state championship when they defeated Lone Peak, 30-27, avenging a loss to the same team in the regular season. Corner Canyon notched quite possibly the biggest victory in school history when they defeated IMG Academy. Returning behind center is four-star Texas A&M commit Helaman Casuga, who threw for 1,898 yards and 21 touchdowns in 2024. Pairing with Casuga on offense at quarterback is Bronson Evans, who threw for over 1,600 yards and 18 touchdowns. Corner Canyon with plenty of proven talent back on offense takes home their sixth state title.

Class 5A: Bountiful

Another team that finished with a 13-1 record out of Utah, capping the 2024 season with a state championship was the Redhawks, who ended up defeating Roy for the 5A title. Bountiful lost its starting quarterback due to transfer, but they do return senior running back Siaki Fekitoa. As a junior, Fekitoa carried the rock 259 times for 1,909 yards and scored 20 touchdowns. On defense, senior linebacker Dawson Allsop (113 tackles in 2024) returns to anchor the team’s front seven.

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Class 4A: Ridgeline

The Riverhawks reached the 4A state semifinals, before losing to state runnerup Spanish Fork, 57-55. Ridgeline amongst the four state semifinalists return the most talent, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Behind center returning is signal caller Nate Dahle, who in 2024 completed 176 of 280 passes for 2,981 yards and 29 touchdowns. Dahle’s favorite target is back in Graham Livingstone, who was terrific season, hauling in 84 passes for 1,624 yards and 15 touchdowns. Senior linebacker Hunter Knighton is back compiling over 100 tackles in 2024.

Class 3A: Manti

We were torn on this particular classification because Morgan having won last year’s state championship. The Templars finished last season as a state semifinalist, before losing to the eventual champions. Manti on offense graduated last year’s starter, Maison Starkweather, but do return backup Carter Mason, who completed 60 of 97 passes for 666 yards and three touchdowns. Senior Mac Olsen is the team’s top defensive player coming back after racking up 102 tackles, 17 for a loss and 7.5 sacks.

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Class 2A: San Juan

The Broncos were the overwhelming favorites a year ago and head into this fall in the same position once again. San Juan did see several key starters graduate, but do returning their leading rusher Jagger Nieves, who rushed for 1,004 yards on 134 carries and found the endzone 22 times. On the defensive end of things, Nieves flips over to defense at middle linebacker and tallied 101 tackles in 2024. Fellow defender George McNaughtan (66 tackles, five sacks in 2024) anchors the defensive line at EDGE.

Class 1A: Kanab

Last but not least we have the Cowboys winning Utah’s Class 1A state championship come fall time, avenging a 43-22 loss last year to Beaver. Kanab has plenty of experience coming back on the offensive side of the ball, including senior running back Hayden Gubler, who rushed for 1,449 yards and scored 21 touchdowns.

Utah started its inaugural NHL season with plenty of top defensemen, but before long there seemed to be more of them in the medical staff’s office than on the ice.

Those injuries necessitated a few in-season moves. GM Bill Armstrong acquired Olli Määttä through a trade with Detroit, followed by periodic waiver claims of Dakota Mermis and Nick DeSimone.

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He also recalled Maveric Lamoureux, Kevin Connauton, Maksymilian Szuber and Patrik Koch from the AHL as needed, but still, there rarely seemed to be enough defensemen.

This year, Armstrong set out in free agency to correct that problem before it arises. He now has 10 defensemen on the roster who are expected to play in the NHL this year:

• Mikhail Sergachev

• John Marino

• Sean Durzi

• Nate Schmidt

• Olli Määttä

• Nick DeSimone

• Scott Perunovich

• Maveric Lamoureux

• Dmitri Simashev

Will the Utah Mammoth defensemen have any injuries to start the season?

The natural inclination is to wonder if someone is expected to miss time at the beginning of the year due to injury. Marino, for example, missed the last five games of the year with an upper-body ailment, which may have been the same one that kept him sidelined the entire first half of the season.

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But Armstrong shut that notion down on free agency day.

“No, but I anticipate a highly competitive camp,” he said in response to the question as to whether he anticipated any injuries to his defensemen to start the season.

Armstrong has never been one to mislead the media, so unless something changes during summer training, expect Marino and the rest of the blue liners to be healthy at training camp.

“You have to remember: In the NHL, everyone says, ‘Oh, you have six great D’ — but it’s really seven,” Armstrong said. “Your seventh D plays 54 games, and when you don’t have that — we had that last year — we don’t want to go through that, where we’re one short, two short or we’re putting young guys in bad situations. I think, by having that type of depth … we’re going to make sure that we have the proper players to go in there without any excuses.”

What will the Utah Mammoth do with all their defensemen?

As nice as it is to have depth, there’s a limit on the number of players a team can have on its NHL roster.

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The respective contract situations of Lamoureux and Simashev allow them to go to the AHL without passing through waivers, but assuming two of the three healthy scratch spots are reserved for forwards, that leaves one defenseman vulnerable to waivers.

Granted, players are much less likely to get claimed off waivers during the preseason than at any other point in the season because that’s when every team is making cuts. If it’s DeSimone or Perunovich that don’t make it, it’s likely that they can pass through waivers safely.

Training camp can always change things, but based on the information that’s available right now, here’s how the Mammoth’s opening night roster could look (don’t put much stock into the specific line combinations, though):

Forwards

• Keller – Cooley – Guenther

• Schmaltz – Hayton – Peterka

• Crouse – McBain – Tanev

• Kerfoot – Stenlund – Carcone

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Defensemen

• Sergachev – Durzi

• Schmidt – Marino

• Cole – Määttä

Goalies

Brigham Young University has always been something of a curiosity in college football.

Outside observers look at the faith-based school and see it conducting a grand experiment.

The school supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has always aspired to be nationally relevant, a big-time player in the college sports landscape, all while adhering to a strict honor code for its students, coaches and faculty. That uniqueness, fueled by a long-held culture of faith and family, sets BYU’s teams apart from almost every other athletic program in the country.

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.

“I have always found BYU to be an absolutely fascinating case study in college sports, particularly football,” said Berry Tramel, college sports columnist for the Tulsa World and a 46-year journalism veteran. “They have a worldwide brand, a worldwide reach, yet they seem to strive to be ‘not of the world,’ in a religious sense.”

Therein lies the rub, the grand experiment, as it were.

Can an athletic program comprised mostly of clean-living, God-fearing, scripture-reading, love-thy-neighbor, Jesus Christ-following individuals thrive in the increasingly secular, cutthroat and money-oriented landscape of college sports?

Nearly half of the players on BYU’s current football roster — 56 — have served missions in 22 different countries and speak 10 different languages. Six coaches on the staff, including head coach Kalani Sitake, have served missions.

Sitake, his assistant coaches, new BYU athletic director Brian Santiago, former and current BYU football players and even national sports reporters such as the aforementioned Tramel believe it can be done.

Sitake’s “love and learn” culture can survive revenue sharing, NIL, the transfer portal and everything else associated with this brave new world of college football, they say, while acknowledging that there will continue to be plenty of challenges along the way.

Already, BYU football in 2025 has experienced some of those difficulties.

As Sitake, Santiago and company try to thread this needle, as momentum seems to be surging for football on the field and basketball on the court, and both in recruiting, for fundraising and for ticket sales, the school lost the university’s most recognizable athlete, its fringe Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback.

Now, the Cougars might have to move through this third year in the Big 12 and first year of revenue sharing with a freshman manning the biggest role at the QB Factory.

Punching above its weight class

BYU’s athletic programs have been successful on a national level during the past 50 years, evidenced by an average rank of 31.3 in the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings. BYU has been in the top 25 nine times since the award’s inception in 1993-94, was 12th in 1998-99, and 25th in the most recent 2024-25 standings.

In roughly the last half-century, it has gone from an obscure school in the Mountain Time Zone to a legitimate college sports power — not a blue blood, by any stretch, but a solid, recognizable, international brand.

A well-rounded athletic program has been the key. Football is still king, but has not been the most successful sport on campus since its national championship in 1984. BYU basketball has been mostly good, but not great, other than Sweet 16 runs in 2011 and last season. The school’s top sports have been cross-country and volleyball, often contested far from the spotlight and attention that BYU fans crave.

Of course, coach Sitake’s football program has been steadily climbing, and is coming off one of the better seasons in school history — an 11-2 record, a four-way tie for first place in the Big 12 regular-season standings, and a resounding 36-14 victory over Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes in the Alamo Bowl last December.

“I have always found BYU to be an absolutely fascinating case study in college sports, particularly football. They have a worldwide brand, a worldwide reach, yet they seem to strive to be ‘not of the world,’ in a religious sense.”

—  Berry Tramel, college sports columnist for the Tulsa World

In football and almost everything else, BYU has punched above its weight class, all while not belonging to a so-called power conference until 2023. All told, the school has managed to mesh athletics and its mission with positive, successful results.

As any legitimate follower of college sports knows, times have drastically changed, and continue to change, in college football and college sports in general. These are not your grandfather’s games.

The latest upheaval is revenue sharing, as schools are allowed to directly share one-fifth of their revenue with student-athletes due to the recent House Settlement approved by a federal judge in San Francisco. Chances are, your favorite male or female college sports star is now being paid, including those at BYU.

All athletes will benefit, but the lion’s share of those proceeds will go to football players.

Revenue sharing — athletes began receiving checks on July 1 — is just the latest game-changer in college sports. It joins additional conference realignment and restructuring, increased scholarship benefits, reduced restrictions on transferring, the advent of the transfer portal, and payments for the use of athletes’ name, image and likeness (NIL) as notable seismic changes the past decade.

Last month, the Deseret News examined how BYU stands to “benefit from the upheaval in the business of college sports,” reporting that its athletic department budget has doubled in less than a decade and university leaders believe they are prepared for the future from a financial perspective.

This article delves into a less quantifiable aspect of the changes and explores whether BYU can continue to have athletic success while maintaining its identity and culture of faith and family, or what Santiago likes to call “the BYU way.”

Among the developments worth exploring:

• BYU’s insistence on adherence to its honor code has resulted in some notable recent headlines, most notably Russian basketball star Egor Demin’s rapid ascendence and his crediting his time at BYU as transformative off the court as well as on. Conversely, quarterback Jake Retzlaff’s missteps led to his departure in July, but upon arriving at Tulane the QB credited BYU’s culture for helping him explore his own Jewish faith at a deeper level.
• How Santiago and 10th-year head football coach Sitake plan to forge ahead with a blueprint laid out by their mentors and predecessors, Tom Holmoe and LaVell Edwards.
• Longtime national college sports observers, and a local one who played for BYU, weigh in; their answers may surprise you.
• How the signing of the No. 1 prep basketball recruit in the country, AJ Dybantsa, who is not a Latter-day Saint, shows that BYU is prepared, and equipped, to battle with the blue bloods for the best of the best. BYU has also landed one of the top quarterbacks in the 2026 signing class, California five-star prospect Ryder Lyons, and the best female long-distance runner in the country, Timpview High’s Jane Hedengren. Last year, BYU signed the top male long-distance runner in the nation, Danny Simmons, who is currently serving a mission in Atlanta.

Understanding the BYU way

Is it doable?

Already this summer, that resolve to adhere to its core beliefs has been tested, as BYU’s most recognizable player, Retzlaff — the first Jewish quarterback in school history — faced a seven-game suspension for violating the honor code and elected to leave BYU and walk on at Tulane. The development has left the program working to find an adequate replacement at the most important position on the field.

BYU landed at No. 23 in the coaches poll released last week, but in other polls and projections, expectations for the Cougars in 2025 have tumbled since Retzlaff’s departure.

But Retzlaff said he thrived in BYU’s culture of faith, and there are other success stories.

Most recently, the teenager Demin, who is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was selected eighth overall by the Brooklyn Nets in June’s NBA draft. In his farewell news conference, Demin described his year at BYU as “life-changing” and referred to his time in Provo as “profoundly important” to his spiritual and personal development. He said he was leaving BYU, but BYU will never leave him.

What key stakeholders are saying

Perhaps nobody at BYU has latched onto that culture and identity and pushed it out to the public more than head football coach Sitake, whose “love and learn” mantra for his program is repeated time and again in Provo. Even BYU President Shane Reese has adopted it, with Reese and Santiago saying recently that Sitake is the ideal man to be running the school’s marquee sports program.

“We are led by a great football coach in Kalani Sitake,” Santiago told the Deseret News in July. “I think he is a great man, and has built a culture of excellence in a way where it is really about the big picture, and especially tied into the mission of BYU.”

Sitake enters his 10th season with a 72-43 record at BYU, including 5-2 in bowl games. Thirteen of his players have been drafted into the NFL. Last December, he signed a “long-term” contract extension.

“I am confident we can keep doing it,” he told the Deseret News last week. “These people around me, these coaches, this support staff, and the players have all bought into the lessons and things that we are trying to teach. It’s not perfect, but these guys are trying hard to be what we want to be. And I like that. I don’t mind the expectations from people. I believe we will rise to them.”

Sitake said he “cringes” a bit when people talk about it being his culture. He said it was first established by the late and legendary Edwards, his coach in the 1990s, and has been successfully implemented at other places by other Edwards’ disciples such as Texas’ Steve Sarkisian and Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs.

“LaVell stressed that if the focus is on the right things, you will be OK,” Sitake said. “With NIL, if you remember correctly, we moved slowly. We didn’t just go crazy, like a lot of other places, because we didn’t have the ability to do that. We wanted to make sure that we did things the right way and were able to avoid entitlement. … When your focus is on the right things, and you don’t focus on money, you are better off.

“LaVell was never about money. He focused on the opportunities and on connection. It is about a lot of the gospel principles that we have in the church. I think they can be applied here,” Sitake continued. “That says a lot about our upper campus administration, our president, vice president (Keith Vorkink), our athletic director. That makes my job a lot easier.”

Finding the right fits for the culture

Sitake said the culture will remain intact because coaches will stress the importance of getting the right fits at BYU, whether recruits are members of the church or not. He noted that even though Retzlaff’s tenure did not end as most would have liked, the quarterback did say when he arrived at Tulane that his time at BYU was transformational and strengthened his own religious beliefs.

Sitake acknowledges that recruiting strong athletes will always be vital to BYU’s future success, but not at the expense of challenging its culture.

“We’ve learned that just because recruits are members of the church, you can’t assume that they’re a great fit,” Sitake said. “Do they fit your locker room? Are they excited about the opportunity? There are a lot of people that want to be here for the right reasons, and we gotta go find them, whether they’re members of the church or not, or whether they have a connection to our legacy or not.”

As examples, Sitake mentioned star running back LJ Martin and quarterback Treyson Bourguet, the latter of which was battling McCae Hillstead and Bear Bachmeier to replace Retzlaff in the starting lineup but appears to have been relegated to a backup role. Neither Martin nor Bourguet are Latter-day Saints.

“LJ didn’t have a connection here, but he studied it and felt like this was a perfect place for him,” Sitake said. “Same with Treyson and others that are here. All these guys, they came here for the right reasons, and none of those involved money.”

Sitake said he learned from Edwards that the players have to come first, and their well-being should be top of mind in building the right culture. Long before the transfer portal and freedom of transferring without having to sit out a year was a thing, Sitake says he always released players to other schools, no questions asked.

“So the transfer portal now is about trying to keep people away from persuading your guys to leave,” he said. “The goal is to keep everybody humble and communicating. I think that’s the key (to retaining players) and strengthening your culture.”

Roderick: Retaining players is part of the battle

Perhaps no coach on campus is more challenged by the Retzlaff departure than offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick, a former Cougar who spent 11 years coaching at the University of Utah and now must find a replacement to keep the momentum, and culture of winning, from grinding to a halt.

Roderick said a good way to gauge whether a culture has staying power is if the program is able to retain players in this day and age of so many outside enticements.

“I think we are made for these changes in college sports,” Roderick said. “This past season, at least on offense, we lost one player to the portal that we really didn’t want to lose. We lost Keelan (Marion), who went to Miami. We loved Keelan. He is a good player. But we lost fewer players than most programs did, and I think a big part of that is, No. 1, we have a lot of players that really want to be here for other reasons besides football. And then Kalani has a great team culture, and guys like playing here.”

On defense, BYU lost part-time starters Crew Wakley to Purdue and Harrison Taggart to Cal, but those departures were more about playing time than the players chasing bigger paydays elsewhere, according to several BYU assistant coaches.

“Our ability to retain players is going to be better than a lot of programs. This is a great place to play, as has been shown,” Roderick said. “And then NIL-wise, we have a lot of people who want to be involved with our program, and have legitimate NIL deals for our guys. Our university has been great about our revenue-sharing operation. So I think yes, we can be very successful in this new era. It actually levels the playing field for us.”

Reese, Santiago and Sitake have made the same observations — that BYU’s uniqueness can be turned into a strength, and not a hindrance.

‘This is just who we are’

Last October, church education commissioner Elder Clark Gilbert told the ”Y’s Guys” podcast that BYU athletics has a mandate to be elite and nationally relevant, but maintain what makes the school unique.

“But if it ever came down to the only way to stay in this (was) to walk away from our values, that would be the end of athletics at BYU,” Gilbert told Dave McCann and Blaine Fowler. “This is not going to happen because we are committed to it from the board (of trustees), to the commissioner, to the president, to the athletic director, to the coaches. We have a culture here that is exceptional and I am confident it won’t (change). There is no other place like this.”

Santiago was Holmoe’s deputy athletic director at the time, but is now sitting in the hot seat. He knows the directive and is eager to carry it out, he said last month at the Big 12 football media days in Frisco, Texas.

“Not only is it doable, it is the way we are going to do it. We are aligned, not only with the leadership of the university and President Reese, but all the way up the ladder to (Elder Gilbert) and the board of trustees,” Santiago said. “We feel passionate that we can win at the highest level, do it within all of the rules and regulations, and bring a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to Cougar Nation.”

Already, Santiago has made some notable enhancements to the athletic department’s senior leadership team, hiring former BYU basketball star and NBA player Travis Hansen as senior associate athletic director and promoting several coaches to larger roles within the department.

Santiago said that aside from revenue sharing, most of the changes have been around for several years, and BYU has flourished with them.

“I think last year was a good example of that. Nobody expecting anything out of Kalani and our football team. … I think he has built some incredible depth in the recruiting, and that is what it takes in these power conferences. And then we saw it in basketball as well. I just think people are going to continue to see BYU on the rise.”

Santiago said an emphasis on preparedness, ingrained into the culture, will carry the day for the Cougars. Like many other BYU coaches and administrators over the years, Santiago said the honor code is a “strength” that the institution will continue to lean into.

“I actually think it is a competitive advantage for us, who we are, what we represent, and the way we do things,” Santiago said. “The right coaches are in place that are going to be able to chase greatness, chase national relevance and do it the BYU way.

“That is just who we are. We have 100 years of history to prove that we can represent everything about this university, and win at the highest level. Everybody is seeing that not only are we going to win big, but we are going to do it in a way that is going to make Cougar Nation proud.”

‘We have been preparing for this’

As reported by the Deseret News last month, school officials have been meeting about, discussing and planning for the House Settlement to be approved for years, Santiago said.

“With revenue sharing and NIL, we actually feel like we are in a position of strength, because we have been preparing for this. We got a great administration at BYU. We have been down the road for a year or two with this, planning and making sure financially we are in a solid position,” Santiago said. “Because of that, and because of the buy-in from our coaches, we are going to be fine.

“We are super excited about the future of revenue share, shifting the power back to the university, allowing us to do this the right way, within the parameters. … We think we are perfectly positioned to be nationally relevant and excellent across the board in every one of our sports, and we are going to emphasize that it all starts with football, but the rest of our sports are super important to us.”

Of course, there have been growing pains. For instance, demand for football and basketball tickets, which is part of the brave new world of college athletics, spurred by membership in the Big 12 in which every game has meaning and significance, is at an all-time high, the Deseret News reported this week.

What others are saying

Back when BYU was being considered for the Big 12, Tramel says he made a trip to Provo to see what the school was all about.

“I have actually been up there a few times. I know more about BYU than most outsiders,” Tramel told the Deseret News. “I actually think BYU is well-positioned to thrive, more than most, because I have seen what they are about.

“BYU has got money,” Tramel continued. “So, money is not a problem. The NIL situation, I am not saying that every (Latter-day Saint) on planet Earth is going to give them money. But, a lot of people will be interested in participating in BYU’s NIL stuff. So I think that gives them an advantage over most.”

An example of how BYU fans are invested in the program, with their hearts and pocketbooks, came in November 2020 when Holmoe asked for $20 million to help with the shortfall caused by COVID-19 eliminating most ticket sales and sponsorships. In five months, BYU fans donated $15.25 million.

Tramel said BYU — and Utah, for that matter — is in a fast-growing market, which should also help.

“BYU has always been a major program, in my eyes,” he said. “They just haven’t been in a major conference. Now they are, and I think they are well-positioned to succeed. I don’t think that means they can become Georgia or Alabama, but I think they can do well.”

Brett McMurphy, a college football insider at On3.com, remembers visiting BYU’s football media day when the school was an independent and taking in all the facilities and atmosphere in Provo and wondering aloud what would happen if the Cougars were ever in a Power Five league.

Now he knows.

“Despite the honor code, I still think BYU can succeed,” McMurphy said. “Were they not in a power conference, I would say, ‘No, they can’t thrive.’ Now that they are in the Big 12, absolutely they can do it. I think there are enough players out there that fit their profile, if you will. They will make it work.”

While acknowledging that he doesn’t follow BYU as closely as others at the national level, McMurphy said it appears from the outside that BYU is willing to be solidly in the game when it comes to NIL, revenue sharing and scholarship enhancements.

“I think the perception is that BYU is a real player in all this, especially with the AJ Dybantsa (signing),” McMurphy said. “It is almost like Texas Tech football, where suddenly you are realizing, ‘Wow, these guys are really into it. They are serious about this. They are going to make a big impact.’”

Signing of AJ Dybantsa

Bruce Feldman, a reporter for The Athletic and Fox Sports, said that BYU is a “national brand” that has been elevated by its membership in the Big 12 and by Sitake’s success since taking over for Bronco Mendenhall. He believes basketball’s signing of Dybantsa sent a message that BYU is all-in in the NIL and revenue sharing era.

“When you get somebody like that, it only helps the national perception of BYU,” Feldman said. “I don’t cover college basketball, but I know who AJ Dybantsa is. That’s huge for BYU.”

Feldman believes in the long run the Retzlaff situation will be “more positive than negative” for BYU, and further solidify the school’s brand.

“We talked to Kalani about the honor code and he was like, ‘Well, that’s what comes with BYU,’” Feldman said. “BYU is going to be very selective in a lot of things, whether it is academics or whatever. I think it helps them. Football is something that is really important there. Kalani leans into that the right way. He is authentic and people know that and they also know that BYU is not for everybody.”

Former BYU defensive back Ben Criddle, now a sports talk radio host on ESPN 960, says BYU can still retain its uniqueness and culture and thrive in the college sports world if it keeps the focus on being transformational instead of transactional.

“I do believe that BYU, with its leadership, and Kalani at the helm with his love-and-learn culture, faith-first and discipleship culture (is set up for continued success),” Criddle said. “We heard Kalani speak at his devotional recently. That embodies what Kalani and the administration want the culture to be within BYU football.”

Having played at two junior colleges, in addition to BYU, and having “interacted with many football players at other schools,” Criddle said BYU’s unique culture is most often evident in the locker room, among its players.

“They are high-level kids that come from high-level families that want to be well-rounded, that want a high academic experience,” he said. “They want jobs that will ultimately take care of their families. They want their morals, ethics and spirituality aligned with the infrastructure that BYU provides, and then they want to be able to compete at the highest levels of athletics.

“They can accomplish that. They will accomplish that as long as they understand what the why of it all is, which is the transformation of individual progression and hopefully aligning with being the best human you can be, and aligning with Christ,” Criddle continued.

The transformations BYU seeks is embodied by this statement from linebacker Jack Kelly, who is not a Latter-day Saint:

“Having this mission that BYU has allows people to be better people. Because if you are following someone like Christ, you are going to have a bigger motivation than yourself to do important things in life,” Kelly said. “If you are just about yourself, you are never going to accomplish anything. Once you put your life in someone else’s hands and you work for something that is bigger than yourself, I feel like you can accomplish anything in the world that you want to.”

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A federal judge sentenced a former Woods Cross gymnastics coach to 10 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision after he admitted to using his position as a coach to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM) with a hidden camera.

In February, Adam Richard Jacobs, 35, pleaded guilty in federal court to felony charges of transporting a minor with intent for criminal sexual activity. On Thursday, he was sentenced to ten years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release.

PREVIOUSLY: Former Utah gymnastics coach admits to hiding cameras in minor’s hotel bathroom

Jacobs was arrested in March 2023, and he was federally charged the next month. According to court documents, he was also charged with production of CSAM and possession of CSAM, but those charges were dismissed as a part of his plea deal.

Jacobs was the owner of USA Gymnastics World since 2018, and police said that he worked as a coach at several other gyms in Utah over the past decade. Court documents state that on two occasions, a USA Gymnastics World employee discovered a hidden camera in a unisex restroom at the facility and called police.

The investigation found about 120 video files of victims in the restroom. Police said that there were roughly 70-80 victims, many of whom were children. Around 40 videos showed Jacobs setting up the cameras in his home and in the facility. Reportedly, the camera was hidden by a USB charger adapter.

19-year-old Cache County man charged in fifth felony case involving offenses against a minor

Jacobs admitted that in his role as a coach, he transported minors from Utah to other states, including Florida and Texas. On those trips, he placed hidden cameras in a minor’s hotel room and bathroom in order to produce CSAM.

In addition to federal charges, Jacobs was also charged by the State of Utah. He pleaded guilty to 15 second-degree felony charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and two class-A misdemeanor charges of voyeurism by concealed or disguised electronic equipment. The sentencing for those charges is scheduled for August 21.

The federal case was a multi-agency investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, Woods Cross Police Department, the Utah Attorney General’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, Kaysville Police Department, Clearfield Police Department, the United States Secret Service, and the Davis County Attorney’s Office.

It was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah. It was also part of Project Safe Childhood, which is a nationwide initiative from the Department of Justice that works to stop child sexual exploitation and abuse.

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