As one of the top offensive linemen in the country, there’s a lot on the line for Spencer Fano and the Utes this season.
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There’s a lot on the line for offensive tackle Spencer Fano and the Utes this season.
Utah has gone all-in on an offensive revamp to try and rebound from a 5-7 season, with players hungry to prove last year was just a one-off blip.
For Fano personally, there’s potentially millions of dollars on the line with a good, and healthy, season this year.
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler projects Fano to go No. 3 to the New York Giants, with other draft experts having Fano within the top 10. If Fano has another season like last year, where he graded out as the best offensive tackle in all of college football according to Pro Football Focus, he could be OT1 in next year’s draft crop.
It’s not just the NFL draft expectations that Fano has to meet this season either, his own head coach is touting the offensive line, which features Fano, fellow tackle and potential first-round draft pick Caleb Lomu, and three veterans in the middle in Tanoa Togiai, Jaren Kump and Michael Mokofisi.
“I can say with confidence, we should be the best offensive line since I’ve been at the University of Utah, which has been forever,” Whittingham said.
No pressure, right?
When I asked Fano at last week’s Big 12 media days if he’s feeling any pressure heading into the season, he had a thoughtful answer that provided some insight as to how he stays grounded as an important football season for him and the team arrives in about a month-and-a-half.
“I feel like there is a little pressure there, but I feel like it’s not that much,” Fano said.
“I know what I have to do and I feel like there’s not a lot of pressure just because I know this is the situation that I’ve always wanted to be in. So if I’ve prayed to be in this chair to be in this moment, why would I stress about it?”
From the moment he arrived on the University of Utah’s campus, Fano has dealt with high expectations, and has handled everything just about as well as he could throughout his college career.
Out of Timpview High, he was one of the highest-rated players to ever commit to Utah (he still ranks No. 6 all-time for the school, according to 247Sports). Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and Oregon’s Dan Lanning flew in for home visits with Fano. Utah, of course, made a strong push.
In the end, he prayed about which school to attend.
“I’m a very religious person and I prayed about it really hard. I feel like there might’ve been other schools at the time that, I don’t know, might’ve piqued my interest a lot, but at the end of the day when I prayed about it, I felt like I got my answer was Utah,” Fano told the Deseret News last year.
After his commitment, his brother, Logan, a defensive end at BYU, transferred to Utah and joined his brother.
Less than a year after his commitment, Fano had one of the hardest jobs in sports as a true freshman — entrusted by offensive line coach Jim Harding to protect a quarterback’s blind side at left tackle for Utah’s season-opener against Florida in 2023.
On his first collegiate snap, Spencer helped create a clean pocket for quarterback Bryson Barnes, who threw a 70-yard pass to Money Parks to open the scoring in the 24-11 win.
It was a storybook start to his collegiate career, one he hopes has a storybook ending.
Fano had an up-and-down year in his true freshman season, but made a huge leap during his sophomore campaign, seeing massive strides in his development as a player and as a student of the game.
Fano had one so-so game last year — giving up a sack and allowing four pressures against Southern Utah in the season opener, and then settled down and became Utah’s most consistent lineman for the rest of the season.
He was extremely effective in the run game and great in protecting Utah’s backup quarterbacks last season. He finished the year allowing just one sack and just 14 quarterback pressures, earning first-team All-Big 12 honors.
Though Fano is getting a lot of the praise, Lomu, Kump, Mokofisi and Tanoa are impressive in their own right. All five have at least two years of college football under their belt — with the interior of the line having even more experience.
Having the same front five back has been essential for Utah, as they already have chemistry and experience playing alongside each other and there’s no new faces to break into the starting lineup.
“I’m a very religious person and I prayed about it really hard. I feel like there might’ve been other schools at the time that, I don’t know, might’ve piqued my interest a lot, but at the end of the day when I prayed about it, I felt like I got my answer was Utah.”
Utah offensive tackle Spencer Fano
“I would say as a whole, and especially with our interior, I feel like we just gained such great chemistry. I feel like we communicate so well and there’s not a lot of twists or blitzes that we can’t pick up together,” Fano said. “... I think the biggest thing that has changed with all of us is that I think we’re a little more nasty as a group.”
Already, Fano and the entire offensive line have built quite a rapport with Devon Dampier, the New Mexico transfer quarterback they’ll be blocking for this season.
“Our relationship with Devon is pretty great,” Fano said. “He’s a really good and humble dude that you want to block for and he’ll take us out to eat once every two, three weeks. So our relationship with Devon’s pretty great. That’s my guy. And yeah, that’s definitely not someone that we want to get hit.”
If Fano — and Utah’s offensive line as a whole — have the season that
Whittingham and others are expecting, he could have a big payday waiting in the NFL.
Until then, his focus is on helping Utah be the best that he can.
“I definitely do think this is a critical year for our program and last year was a bit of a fluke and we’re trying to prove that that’s what that was,” Fano said.
In case you missed it
Utah offensive tackle commit Kelvin Obot was upgraded to a 5-star recruit by Rivals and On3, making him the first-ever five-star that Utah has landed.
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