Coaching changes, or perhaps better stated, coaching developments came often and unexpectantly late in the 2025 calendar year and necessarily garnered a lot of attention when considering all of it was on the college football front, the top sport in the state. It’s a topic that necessarily dominates the top ten sports stories of 2025 with those developments likely to play major impacts in the coming years.

But it wasn’t all about coaching developments this past year.

There’s player, facility and logo stories that span almost all sports from baseball to hockey to even track and field that filled up a lot of our interest over the past 365 days.

So here’s our best stab at which of the ten deserve top billing and how those ten are ranked.

Tony Avelar, Associated Press

10. Dapper Dons

The best prep story of 2025 had to belong to a Spanish Fork baseball team that became the lowest-seeded team ever to march its way to a state championship. The Dons did it running through some of the top teams in the state, including No. 1-ranked Maple Mountain. Spanish Fork fought through injury throughout the regular season, but managed to take its No. 20 ranking and run through the bracket to become the final team standing at the end of it all.

9. On the move

2025 marked the opening of South Jordan’s gorgeous new Ballpark at America First Square, which is the new home of the Salt Lake Bees. The Bees made their home at Smith’s Ballpark in South Salt Lake City since 1994, but moved down south to play at a state-of-the-art new facility that is certain to attract more fans in future years.

8. Coming back home

Courtesy BYU Photo

Embattled Utah men’s basketball program needed some type of infusion to restart its once proud team and the hope is Alex Jensen is exactly the coach to do as much. Jensen joined the Utes on the heels of a stellar NBA coaching career where he served as the top assistant coach for both the Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks. The former Ute standout was always one of Rick Majerus’s most cherished players, and now the hope is that Jensen can bring similar Majerus-type results.

7. Mammoth announcement

Utah was granted an NHL franchise in 2024, although that team entered its first season without a moniker. Several names were suggested, such as the Outlaws, Black Diamonds and the Yeti, but at the end of all of it, Utah’s NHL franchise will be known henceforth as the Utah Mammoth, as announced in May. Hockey is a great sport, and local fans have responded well to the new franchise with much excitement for future success.

6. Beware the Bear

It’s not often that a single player warrants top story consideration, but BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier was just that good in 2025. The true freshman transferred to BYU in June from Stanford, battled his way to being named the program’s starting quarterback and then went on to exceed everyone’s expectations, and by a large margin. Bachmeier was the talk of the state, and has an extremely bright future ahead of him considering what he showed in his very first collegiate season.

Courtesy BYU Athletics

5. A terrific 12

BYU football matched a program-high 12 wins in 2025, topping it all off with a thrilling 25-21 win over Georgia Tech in the Pop-tarts Bowl. The season ushered in several thrilling comeback wins, highlighted with a 24-21 win over Colorado, a 33-27 overtime victory at Arizona and doing the improbable in a 41-27 win over Iowa State. Oh yeah, the Cougars beat rival Utah for a third straight time in their bid to be fully recognized as the state’s top college football program.

4. A Morgan makeover

It’s been many years in the making, but Utah football finally bid farewell to Kyle Whittingham, and his 21 years as the Ute’s head coach, to usher in the Morgan Scalley era. Scalley joined Utah’s staff soon after he completed his playing career and has held various posts since the 2007 season, eventually being vaulted as the team’s Defensive Coordinator and now as the head coach.

3. Kudos to Kalani

Smith Entertainment Group via AP

At the tail end of BYU’s remarkable season was Cougar Head Coach appearing on the cusp of taking the vacant head coaching job at Penn State. The news came with a lot of consternation, to not only BYU fans, but to a BYU administration which worked ardently to raise the funds necessary in order to at least match the Nittany Lion’s offer while securing Sitake’s services as head coach for many years to come. Sitake is someone who has always dreamed of coaching at BYU, and perhaps only at BYU, and now that seems a very likely possibility moving forward.

2. Blue, but not THAT blue

Former Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham has made it a practice for sometime now to never mention the words ‘BYU’ in any forum, and he probably hasn’t worn the color blue often over the past 21 years, if at all. Now Whittingham will be heading a Michigan program that is often referred to as ‘Big Blue’ after accepting the job on a 5-year contract as announced on December 28. Most assumed Whittingham would ride off into the sunset after this season, but the Provo High School and BYU alum obviously felt he had enough left in the tank.

1. A Historic run

It may never happen again, but Jane Hedengren was just that good in 2025. Yes, being named the Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year deserves top billing, and Hedengren validated all of her extraordinary hype in being named as the Big 12 Conference Women’s Runner of the Year after breaking numerous records, most notably her 5,000 meter time of 14:44.79, which not only was a collegiate record, but also the second-fastest time ever recorded by an American woman. The Timpview product was phenomenal throughout and absolutely the top sports story of 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald