Utah adds TE coach with Big 12 experience and ties to another Beehive State school

The next piece to assembling Morgan Scalley’s first coaching staff came into place Tuesday, as the University of Utah announced that Luke Wells will join the Utes as the school’s tight ends coach.

Wells replaces Freddie Whittingham, who left to take over the same role as Michigan with his brother, Kyle Whittingham, the Utes’ 21-year head coach who is now leading the Wolverines program.

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“Luke brings a wealth of experience within the conference to our staff, which will be very beneficial,” Scalley said in a statement. “He has spent time coaching several position groups, is known for developing players and can help us in many different aspects offensively. I’m looking forward to welcoming him to the Utah family!”

With Jason Beck, who spent one year as Utah’s offensive coordinator, and most of his assistants joining Whittingham in Michigan, there was a major overhaul on that side of the ball for the Utes’ coaching staff.

That included bringing in Kevin McGiven as offensive coordinator, Jordan Gross as offensive line coach and Chad Bumphis as wide receivers coach.

On the offensive side, the only holdover assistant coach from the previous regime was running backs coach Mark Atuaia.

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Wells has extensive ties to the Big 12 and also worked as an assistant coach at Utah State from 2013-18, where he coached alongside his brother, former Aggies head coach Matt Wells.

Luke Wells was most recently was the tight ends coach at Kansas State, again working with his brother, who was the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator.

Wells spent the 2025 season with the Wildcats, following two years as a high school assistant coach and one season at Tulsa.

Prior to that, Wells had spent time coaching tight ends, among other responsibilities, at Texas Tech (2019-21), his aforementioned time at Utah State, Iowa State (2009-12), Louisiana-Monroe (2003-08) and Oklahoma as a graduate assistant (1999-2001).

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“I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity from Coach Scalley to join his staff and be a part of the winning culture at the U,” Wells said in a statement. “I’m excited to be back in Utah and ready to get to work with this talented tight end room.”

In his time at Kansas State, Wells helped develop tight end Garrett Oakley, who earned All-Big 12 honorable mention honors during a season when he had 38 receptions for 389 yards and six touchdowns.

At Utah State, Wells spent four years as a co-offensive coordinator — that included his final season in Logan, when the Aggies averaged 47.5 points per game in 2018.