Utah News

Utah State’s Fall camp is in full swing as the Aggies prepare for the 2025 season with their season opener against UTEP less than a month out. There are still some questions about the depth chart, especially at receiver and at offensive line, but there are other position groups where the starters are clearer. So, who are the predicted starters and who are the backups that could make a difference and potentially see the field? Let’s get into it!

This article in the series will cover the defensive line.

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Defensive End #1

Starting Defensive End #1: Tyree Morris (Junior): Tyree Morris is a junior who has spent the past two seasons at Lafayette, appearing in 22 games with 12 starts and recording 77 tackles, three sacks, 6.5 tackles for loss, four pass breakups, and a forced fumble. With the opportunity to play alongside defensive end Enoka Migao, the two could turn into a very productive pass rush package.

Other Names to Consider for Defensive End #1: #1 Carson Tujague (Redshirt Freshman); #2 Tanner Jolley (Sophomore)

Carson Tujague played at BYU in 2024, redshirting his freshman season and making no appearances on the field as he served on the scout team. In high school, Tujague attended Western Albemarle High School in Virginia and was rated as a three-star prospect by 247Sports before going on a two-year LDS mission.

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Tanner Jolley redshirted his 2023 season with the Aggies and did not appear in any games. During the 2024 season, Jolley played in one game against San Diego State and did not record any statistics. During his senior year of high school (Fruita Monument High School, Colorado), Jolley made 44 tackles, four sacks, and nine tackles for loss in addition to forcing a fumble and recovering a fumble.

Starting Defensive End #2

Enoka Migao (Senior): Enoka Migao has spent his entire career with Utah State, and throughout his career, he has played in 22 games with five starts. At Utah State, Migao has made 27 tackles, one sack, and three tackles for loss.

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Other Names to Consider for Defnesive End #2: #1 Carl Nesmith (Senior); #2 Zion Andreasen (Sophomore); #3 William Holmes (Sophomore)

Carl Nesmith played in three games and had two tackles and one sack in his junior year in 2024. Before coming to Utah State, Nesmith played for Fullerton College his sophomore year, recording 31 tackles, nine sacks, 13 tackles for loss, three pass breakups, and one forced fumble. Carl Nesmith redshirted at Florida A&M before coming to Fullerton College. Nesmith will have the opportunity to see the field more this season in relief of Enoka Migao.

Zion Andreasen redshirted the 2023 season and appeared in one game against Idaho State, making one tackle. During his redshirt freshman season in 2024, Andreasen appeared in five games and made one tackle against Washington State. As a senior at East High School in Salt Lake City, Andreasen had 93 tackles, 18.5 sacks, and 11 pass breakups.

William Holmes appeared in nine games and had six tackles and 1.5 sacks during his freshman year in 2024. An interesting fact about Holmes is that he was selected in the fifth round of the 2018 MLB Draft by the Los Angeles Angels.

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Nose Tackle

Starting Nose Tackle: Gabriel Iniguez Jr. (Senior): Besides playing at Utah State in 2024, Gabriel Iniguez Jr. has played for Hawaii (2020-2021) and New Mexico State (2023) and over his Division 1 collegiate career, Iniguez Jr. has played in 27 games with 16 starts and has made 53 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and 6.5 tackles for loss. During the 2024 season, Gabriel Iniguez Jr. started all 12 games for the Aggies and finished the season with 29 tackles, 0.5 sacks, and 1.5 tackles for loss. Gabriel Iniguez Jr. finished the 2023 season with New Mexico State with 24 tackles, two sacks, and five tackles for loss through 15 games. Before New Mexico State, he played his redshirt freshman season at City College of San Francisco, playing in 10 games and making 37 tackles, six sacks, eight tackles for loss, and forcing and recovering one fumble. Gabriel Iniguez Jr. began his collegiate career at Hawaii and did not appear on the field in 2020 before redshirting the 2021 season.

Backup Nose Tackle: #1 Naki Fahina (Senior); #2 Kone Aumua-Uiagalelei (Junior); #3 Joshua Papu (Redshirt Freshman)

Naki Fahina is in his first season with Utah State after spending the 2023 season with New Mexico State, starting in 12 games as a junior and finishing the season with 29 tackles and one tackle for loss. Before coming to New Mexico State, Fahina spent the 2019 to 2023 seasons with UNLV, appearing in 27 games with seven starts and making 36 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 5.5 tackles for loss, one pass breakup, and forcing one fumble. In 2023, Naki Fahina redshirted and appeared in four games, and in 2022, Fahina was granted a medical redshirt. As a true freshman in 2019, Naki Fahina appeared in seven games and had five tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss.

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Kone Aumua-Uiagalelei is in his first year with Utah State after playing for Mt. San Antonio College in California as a sophomore, recording 22 tackles and 1.5 sacks. Kone Aumua-Uiagalelei spent his freshman season at Independence Community College in Kansas and prepared at Auburn Riverside High School, recording 25 tackles as a senior.

Joshua Papu redshirted at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, and did not play during the 2024 season. In high school, Papu prepped at Tafuna High School in Fagatogo, American Samoa, and was ranked as the #1 defensive lineman in American Samoa as he recorded three sacks, 10 tackles for loss, and forced three fumbles with one recovery.

Defensive Tackle

Starting Defensive Tackle: Bo Maile (Senior): Bo Maile, in his career with Utah State, has played in 33 games and has started one. Maile has 40 career tackles, 1.5 sacks, and three tackles for loss. Bo Maile played in 11 games in 2024, finishing the season with 19 tackles, 0.5 sacks, and 1.5 tackles for loss. During his sophomore season in 2023, Maile again played in 11 games, finishing the season with 14 tackles and 0.5 sacks for loss. In his redshirt freshman season, Bo Maile played in 11 games and finished the season with seven tackles. During his redshirt season in 2021, Maile did not appear in any games. While he has made just one start in his career, Bo Maile is going to be an important piece of the defensive line this season. If he can stay healthy, he should make quite a few starts this season.

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Backup Defensive Tackles: #1 Nu’uletau Sellesin (Senior); #2 Iverson Report (Freshman); #3 Bryan Vogl (Sophomore)

Nu’uletau Sellesin is in his first year with Utah State after spending the past two seasons with BYU (2023-2024). With the Cougars, Sellesin appeared in two games and recorded one tackle in 2023 and did not appear in any games in 2024. Before attending BYU, Nu’uletau Sellesin spent three seasons with Weber State (2020-2022) and appeared in 13 games during that time, making 24 tackles, four sacks, six tackles for loss, and forcing one fumble. Nu’uletau Sellesin prepped at Woods Cross (Utah) High School, and in his prep career, he made 88 tackles, 13 sacks, 28 tackles for loss, a pass breakup, and forced one fumble. Before attending Weber State, Sellesin went on a two-year LDS mission.

Iverson Report is a freshman who played at Layton (Utah) Christian Academy and had 206 tackles and 40 sacks during his prep career. In his senior season, Report had 48 tackles, 14 sacks, and 20 tackles for loss. As a junior, Report had 88 tackles and had nine sacks. As a sophomore, Iverson Report had 42 tackles, including 12 sacks, and had 28 tackles and five sacks as a freshman.

Bryan Vogl arrived at Utah State in 2023 and redshirted both the 2023 and 2024 seasons as he did not appear in any games. Vogl attended Cedar Valley High School in Utah and finished his high school career with 196 tackles, including 31 sacks, 62 tackles for loss, eight pass breakups, six forced fumbles, and four fumble recoveries. During his senior year, Bryan Vogl had 50 tackles, seven sacks, and 17 tackles for loss in addition to adding two pass deflections and two fumble recoveries with one forced fumble.

Two police officers were fatally shot and one deputy was wounded following an incident in Tremonton, Utah, according to police.

An officer with the Tremonton Garland Police responded to a report of a disturbance at a home late Sunday night, Aug. 17, according to a news release from the Brigham Police Department obtained by USA TODAY.

As the officer was speaking to an occupant, “a male emerged from the residence with a firearm” and fatally shot the officer, according to police. When the second officer arrived to assist, police said the suspect opened fire, killing them.

Brigham Police Detective Crystal Beck said at a news conference shared by local outlet KSL that the officers stopped answering their radios after calling additional units.

Three police officers were injured in a shooting in a northern Utah city and a man was taken into custody, police said.

The officers were responding to a disturbance call late Sunday in a neighborhood in Tremonton. The extent of their injuries and their conditions weren’t immediately known.

“Upon arrival, they immediately began taking fire,” Police Detective Crystal Beck of neighboring Brigham City told reporters. “They requested additional units. And then stopped answering their radio.”

Beck said once additional police arrived, “they were able to locate the subject of the shooting and take him into custody.”

Beck confirmed that multiple agencies, including a SWAT team, from three counties responded to the scene.

Beck said she did not have the suspect’s name but said he is in custody at the Box Elder County Jail. She said there was no threat to the public.

Beck said the officers were injured but had no information on their conditions. She said no citizens were injured.

“I think it leaves a big impact when any officer is involved in something like this,” Beck said. “It affects not only the officers here in our community but also all over Utah, all over the nation.”

Tremonton, which has about 10,000 people, is about 75 miles north of Salt Lake City.

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In the transfer portal age of college athletics, it’s become common to see some players on your favorite team leave every year.

For Utah this offseason, defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa left for BYU, cornerback Cam Calhoun left for Alabama and wide receiver Zacharyus Williams left for USC.

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On the other hand, the Utes utilized the portal to get players such as New Mexico quarterback Devon Dampier, Washington State running back Wayshawn Parker and UC Davis cornerback Blake Cotton, all of whom are projected to start this season.

Utah also got running back NaQuari Rogers and wide receiver Ryan Davis from New Mexico, along with Lobos offensive coordinator Jason Beck.

“I mean listen, New Mexico is probably not thrilled with the Utes right now. We’ve got their coach and their quarterback and their running back,” Utah athletic director Mark Harlan said on Saturday.

For all the positives of the transfer portal — allowing teams to completely revamp their roster in an offseason, allowing players the freedom to go wherever they want — there’s drawbacks as well.

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Teams have a lot of turnover — new players, between freshmen and transfers, make up about half of Utah’s roster this season — every year. Fans, meanwhile, aren’t as connected to new players as they used to be after watching them develop in the program for three or four years.

Prior to the advent of the portal, the NCAA rule made it so players could transfer, but they’d have to sit out a “year in residency” before being allowed to play. That wasn’t that long ago; Cam Rising had to sit out his first season in Salt Lake City after transferring from Texas in 2019.

Then, the rules shifted to one transfer without having to sit out a year, but the year in residency rule would apply to the second transfer.

That’s what happened to Runnin’ Utes guard Deivon Smith, who transferred from Georgia Tech. Then, during the middle of the basketball season, a West Virginia judge struck down the NCAA’s transfer rules, clearing the way for Smith to immediately play.

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Smith, by the way, transferred again after a successful season at Utah to play at St. John’s.

The NCAA could no longer enforce its own rules, and relented. Now, every player is immediately eligible to play, no matter how many times they transfer schools.

Unlimited free agency has turned the college sports world on its head. In no other sports league in the world does free agency happen every season. Imagine if LeBron James or Patrick Mahomes were able to sign with a new team every year. That’s what’s currently happening in college sports.

While unlimited transfers can have some positive aspects for players and teams, those in charge of collegiate athletics are clear that it’s a net negative.

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The question is, how do you fix it?

The NCAA is powerless in its ability to enforce transfer rules struck down by the legal system. During the landmark House v. NCAA settlement, which allowed universities to directly pay players for the first time ever, any attempt to restrict transfers was denied.

The reasoning from the courts is simple — college players are students of a university, and it’s not legal to block a student from transferring to another school.

The only way to truly solve the issue is with federal legislation or collective bargaining (players forming a union and negotiating with a league).

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Right now, federal legislation seems to be the path forward. Last month, members of the House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan bill — the SCORE act — that attempts to set some guardrails on college sports.

The bill covers a wide range of important issues, with rules for transfers being one of them. The bill shields participating institutions from antitrust lawsuits, meaning the NCAA could once again set parameters for “the manner in which a student-athlete may transfer between institutions, if such rules provide that at least one occasion each student-athlete may transfer between institutions and be immediately eligible.”

In essence, that would mean the return of the year in residency requirements for athletes that transfer more than one time.

“Listen, it is a tough deal. I do think … this is going to have to be solved by federal legislation. I will say there’s more momentum there than there has been. We expect a bill to pass in the House here shortly. In the Senate, it’s going to have some problems,” Harlan said.

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“Both sides I think understand that the graduation rates are going to plummet and we’re going to be where we were in the 70s…where student-athletes were just not graduating, and it’s a shame.”

In the meantime, until federal legislation is enacted or collective bargaining happens, Utah is doing what it can to entice athletes to stay in Salt Lake City.

That includes signing some athletes to multi-year revenue sharing deals. The deals don’t prevent a player from leaving for another school but can include financial penalties such as buyout money a player (or their new school) has to pay to the university to exit the deal, just like coaches have to do when they get a new job.

Multi-year deals haven’t become commonplace for Utah, Harlan said, but the school has signed some with players.

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“Well, we’re just starting, right? So it’ll be interesting to see, but there’s language in these contracts that talks about possible loss of value if they leave,” Harlan said.

“We’re just all going to play it out, and then how harsh is Jason (Greco, Utah’s executive senior associate athletics director for governance and brand strategy) is going to tell me to be. I love the kid and I don’t want to hold kids back. I’m not in the business for that, so we’re just going to have to kind of figure it out as we go.”

Until transfer limits are restored, more and more schools will roll out multi-year deals to try to keep athletes on their campus. The other hope for schools is that with the new revenue-sharing cap and a clearinghouse that will evaluate third-party NIL deals for “true market value,” there will be a more level financial playing field in the Power Four, which will in turn limit the volume of players transfers to new schools for a pay increase.

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).

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.”