Utah football makes major front office changes

The Utes have brought in a new general manager and parted ways with a few other front office members

The Utah Utes have made several coaching and front office moves since the end of the 2025 season. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Its coaching staff revamped, the Utah football program continued to make operational changes Monday as it gears up for Morgan Scalley's first season at the helm as head coach.

Joe D'Orazio, formerly the director of football strategy at USC, has been hired by Utah to be the program's new general manager, according to reports.

D'Orazio, who previously spent time with the Utes as a graduate assistant in 2012, is set to return to Salt Lake City after Utah's decision to move on from Robert Blechen put the Utes in the market for a general manager.

Blechen was one of four front office members the Utes moved on from Monday, according to UteNation.com's Alex Markham. Sam Morrissette (director of personnel), Patrick Jefferis (director of recruiting) and Reggie Dunn (player experience coordinator) were no longer with Utah as of Monday morning as well.

Blechen, who helped the Utes win two Pac-12 championships and assembled Utah's best recruiting class in program history (2023) during his time in Salt Lake City, will reportedly join the personnel department at Michigan, according to footballscoop.com. He spent the previous 12 years in various front office roles at Utah, starting as the recruiting assistant in 2014-15 before working his way up to director of player personnel in 2017.

"Did the best I could. Sorry Ute fans we didn’t do better. Change is tough but necessary sometimes. Onto the next opportunity," Blechen wrote in a post to X on Monday.

In addition to Lincoln Riley's top off-the-field staffer, Utah brought in someone with playing experience and an NFL background to fill its general manager role. Prior to his one season in Los Angeles, D'Orazio, a former offensive lineman at Penn, worked at Baylor as the quality control coach and at Columbia, where he was the running backs coach for four seasons and director of learning and team development before being named offensive coordinator in 2023.

D'Orazio's tenure at his alma mater's Ivy League rival followed a brief stint at the professional level, where he was the quality control and assistant wide receivers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles (2016-17) and a special assistant to Andy Reid with the Kansas City Chiefs (2013-15).

Utah helped set D'Orazio on a path in coaching when the program brought him on Kyle Whittingham's staff as a graduate assistant in 2012. He had previously served as the University of Chicago's tight ends coach in 2011.

D’Orazio was a two-time All-Ivy League selection during his three seasons with the Quakers and helped lead the team to back-to-back league championships in 2009 and 2010.

The hiring of D’Orazio was the latest change the Utes made as they transitioned to Scalley's regime. Utah hired or promoted eight individuals on Scalley's main coaching staff in the wake of the mass exodus of coaches who left Salt Lake City to join Whittingham in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as revamp its roster through the transfer portal.

General managers in college football have become essential when it comes to acquiring talent and building out recruiting classes that require significant NIL funds to put together. Especially with the guidelines put in place by the House settlement — namely, the $20.5 million salary cap — general managers play an important role in managing funds as they oversee roster construction, similar to a general manager in the NFL.