BUTTE — Former Montana Grizzly and Eureka head football coach Trevor Utter was back in his home state on Saturday.
Utter retired from his job as principal of Eureka Middle School two years ago and he and his wife then relocated to Redding, Calif., where he ended up joining Simpson University football's staff as an assistant for the 2025 season before being promoted to head coach ahead of this season.
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The Red Hawks were in Dillon on Saturday to face Montana Western. The Bulldogs ultimately won 47-28.
"I did a 25-year career in education, high school football. And then my wife and I retired and we were 48 years old and knew we wanted to do something different," said Utter ahead of the game. "And so we started looking at options to work in a Christian environment and coach football and Simpson plugged all those holes for us.
"We started talking with the football program. Eventually it just came where the timing of my retirement and them needing a coach happened."
Utter was head coach at Eureka from 2012-2024. During that span, the Lions captured three Class B state championships (2016, 2017, 2019).
"Just building something special with people that I love," said Utter when reflecting on his time with the Lions. "The players and the coaches and the families are people that I grew up with. It was a massive blessing for me and my family."
Utter helped build a dynasty as Eureka, and he's now looking to continue helping Simpson grow as the program nears the end of its third-ever season.
"Our hopes and dreams are to build a stadium and have some major success and be competitive in the Frontier Conference every single year," said Utter. "We're getting to that point now and we feel like there's no going back for us. We feel like we can climb, climb, climb and be competing for championships every year. That's the goal."
