Kansas

What Utah players said after pivotal win over Kansas

Published

3 months ago

November 28, 2025

What Utah players said after pivotal win over Kansas

Friday’s regular season finale for Utah football was a culmination of everything the Utes had done over the offseason to move past last season’s disappointing ending.

One play in the fourth quarter of Utah’s 31-21 win over Kansas embodied the turnaround Kyle Whittingham and his staff strove to achieve since the conclusion of their 5-7 finish to the 2024-25 campaign roughly a year ago.

Needing a first down to close out what had been a slugfest against the Jayhawks, New Mexico transfer Devon Dampier faked a quarterback draw play, stepped back and let a deep ball rip down the field to Larry Simmons, a transfer from Southern Mississippi who earned quite the reputation as a big-time playmaker as of late, for a 48-yard touchdown to put the Utes up by double-digits with just over 3 minutes to play.

“That’s something we’ve been working for a long time,” Simmons said of the play after the game. “And we finally got the chance to call it and we was able to execute it.”

It was even a longer wait for offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who originally drew up the play during his five years at Virginia (2016-2021) and had been patiently awaiting an opportunity to dial it up for the Utes.

The rest of the afternoon wasn’t smooth sailing for the Utes offense, though it got help from some big-time plays in the red zone from its defense. Three players from last season’s 5-7 squad — Smith Snowden, Jackson Bennee and Scooby Davis — picked off Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels on three separate drives that went as deep as the Utah 25-yard line, preventing Kansas from capitalizing off its effective rushing attack.

Bennee’s interception early in the fourth quarter helped set up a 4-play, 80-yard drive that was capped off by a 28-yard touchdown from Simmons’ putting the Utes back in front, 17-14, with just over 12 minutes remaining. Davis extended the lead not long after with a 97-yard interception returned for a touchdown, making it 24-14 with just under 8 minutes to play.

Kansas, which rushed for 290 yards and came just shy of eclipsing 450 total yards of offense on the day, responded with an 8-play, 93-yard drive to make it a 3-point game again.

Looking to put the game away, Utah delivered the final knockout punch with the deep ball to Simmons, keeping the Utes’ College Football Playoff and Big 12 title game hopes alive in the process.

Regardless of how the ensuing weekend slate played out, Utah doubled its win total while, at the very least, clinching a bowl game berth after missing the postseason entirely a year ago.

Here’s what Dampier and Bennee said after the game.

“First off, that was [offensive coordinator] Jason Beck. He does a lot of things week in, week out. We’ve been holding on to that play for a long time now, so the situation just presented itself. They got a little heavy to stop that run game and man, put Larry on the deep post, he’s gonna come down with it. So it’s kind of how that play just came up in that situation.”

“I think we held ourselves back multiple times; whether it was loss of yardage on the down, or penalties that put us in very bad third down situations. We hope to be more efficient than we were, but I mean, that’s what happens in football. Not everything’s gonna be perfect. It’s how you respond, and I think the offense did a great job of getting on top of that and helping the defense.”

“That’s a tremendous play that could have been useful for them and would have made it harder for us to come back.”

“Again, I’m proud of our defense. They were on it all night. Our offense was like, ‘Alright, defense been going out all game, it’s for us to go out there and do what we got to do.’”

Dampier: “It’s huge. For our goals at the beginning of the year, we hoped 10-2 gets us to what we want to do. But just from my standpoint, when I got here in January, we were not happy with how last year went. A turnaround needed to happen. We demanded it. Every day, coaches demanded out of us; players, we demanded it, and captains and all that stuff.”

“Just happy it all came together. We finished strong and saw that work we put in.”

“It just wasn’t our ball last week. Everybody knows that we just didn’t play our best football at all. But today, we just wanted to leave it in the past and continue with how we know how to play defense and gap, sound assignment, sound defense, and I thought we did well with that today.”

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Kansas

Former Kansas high school wrestling coach charged with producing child pornography

Published

5 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Former Kansas high school wrestling coach charged with producing child pornography

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – A former Kansas wrestling coach was charged with creating child sexual abuse materials by secretly recording minors showering during an athletic competition.

According to court documents, 37-year-old Ryan Brungardt of Salina is charged with two counts of production of child pornography and one count of attempted production of child pornography.

Brungardt is a former employee at Lakewood Middle School and former wrestling coach for Salina Central High School.

Brungardt is accused of using a cellphone to record three minors while they showered in a locker room during the Tournament of Champions, a wrestling tournament was held at Newton High in January 2024.

Brungardt made his initial court appearance for the criminal complaint on Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Brooks G. Severson.

A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday

Investigators are in the process of reviewing additional seized cellphone videos in this case that are suspected to have been recorded at wrestling meets in Newton, Hays, Garden City and Salina during the 2023-2024 wrestling season.

Anyone who believes they witnessed crimes or any suspicious activity at these events is asked to contact the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at (785) 600-8790 or report at www.kbi.ks.gov/sar.

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