- Southern Utah heads into a Big Sky Conference transition with a quarterback room that Thunderbirds coaches called one of their biggest 2025 strengths, and transfer Will Burns gives the Thunderbirds a dual-threat arrival story.
- Will Burns, Southern Utah Football connect back to Southern Utah University and the wider football picture.
- The story is backed by 3 sources and a visible last-verified date.
March 30, 2026
April 1, 2026
4 min / 885 words
3 official links
SUU Football spent 2025 closing out a final United Athletic Conference season and preparing for a full move to the Big Sky in 2026-27. The Thunderbirds' August preview framed the quarterback room as one of the team's biggest strengths, and Will Burns — a 6-foot-2, 215-pound redshirt junior from Mission Viejo, California — arrived as the transfer the program signed to make the room work.
Head coach DeLane Fitzgerald used unusually direct language in the same release. The group, he said, had "experience, leadership, and some really exciting young talent." That is the kind of preseason quote that signals a coaching staff confident in its position group ahead of a year that includes a conference transition announcement.
Mission Viejo to Texas Tech to Costa Mesa to Cedar City
Burns' college route is one of the longer arcs in the Thunderbirds' 2025 roster. He grew up in Mission Viejo, California, played his prep football at Trabuco Hills High School, and signed initially with Texas Tech — but as a baseball player on the program's roster. Texas Tech's combined football-and-baseball pathway is one of the country's smaller cross-sport development tracks, and Burns spent two baseball seasons in Lubbock before refocusing on football.
The transfer to Golden West College in Costa Mesa, California, opened the football chapter. Golden West plays in the Southern California Football Association, one of the country's most-competitive community-college football conferences. The SCFA's All-Conference roster regularly produces FBS and FCS signings each cycle, and Burns' time at Golden West placed him inside that recruiting environment.
The 2024 season at Golden West produced the breakthrough. Burns was named the SCFA Offensive Player of the Year after throwing for 1,857 yards with 22 touchdowns and adding 650 rushing yards with seven more rushing scores. The dual-threat production opened the FCS recruiting window, and Southern Utah's coaching staff signed him for the 2025 season.
The 2025 SUU season
Burns moved from depth to a regular dual-threat option through the 2025 schedule. The Thunderbirds' coaching staff used him in packages designed to take advantage of his rushing ability while preserving his arm for the program's standard passing concepts.
The most specific in-season marker on Burns' page is the Tarleton State performance, in which he ran for 127 yards and a touchdown while completing 12 of 17 passes for 121 yards and another score. That is the kind of dual-threat game line the Thunderbirds' coaching staff signed him for: passing efficiency in the high-70-percent range, rushing production over 100 yards, and a score on each side of the ball.
The Tarleton State matchup was a non-conference game on the SUU schedule. Tarleton State is itself a recent FCS-to-FBS transition program, which makes the Thunderbirds' result one of the more contextual data points on the 2025 record.
The Big Sky transition
SUU announced its Big Sky football membership move in the same year as Utah Tech's announcement. Both Utah programs leave their current conference and enter the Big Sky for the 2026-27 season.
The Big Sky's conference structure means annual games against Weber State, Idaho State, Montana, and Montana State, plus travel to Northern Arizona and Idaho. Cedar City has to arrive at the Big Sky's full schedule with a quarterback depth chart that can hold up to that kind of calendar.
The Big Sky's western footprint is also significant. The conference's identity has been built around the Montana and Idaho programs, with the Eastern Washington dynasty driving much of the league's quarterback-school reputation. SUU and Utah Tech enter as the two programs adding Utah-state representation, which gives Burns' quarterback room a chance to anchor the program's first Big Sky weekend on the road.
Cedar City and Eccles Coliseum
SUU plays its football at Eccles Coliseum on the Cedar City campus, the southwestern Utah city that sits within driving range of St. George, Las Vegas, and the southern Mountain West region. The program's home schedule typically draws crowds from Iron County, the surrounding Cedar City community, and the regional schools that compete in southern Utah's prep football network.
Burns' profile gives the program a quarterback for the marketing window into the Big Sky transition. The 2025 season closes the UAC chapter; the 2026 spring practice will be where the program first formally addresses the Big Sky schedule with its returning roster, including the quarterback room Fitzgerald praised in August.
What's next
SUU enters the Big Sky for the 2026-27 season. Each spring practice update, depth chart announcement, and conference release becomes the next concrete data point in Burns' record and the program's transition.
The Thunderbirds' offseason calendar runs through winter recruiting, spring practice (typically February-March), and the program's spring game (typically April). The depth chart announcements through that window will name the Big Sky-era starting quarterback.
Burns' redshirt-junior status gives him at least one more season of college eligibility. If the 2025 production continues into the Big Sky opener, the Thunderbirds enter their new conference with a dual-threat starter at the top of the depth chart — exactly the structural setup the program's August release described.
For now, the verified record is the SCFA Offensive Player of the Year award, the Texas Tech baseball chapter, the 2025 Tarleton State game line, and Fitzgerald's preseason quote. That is enough to make Southern Utah's quarterback room a public storyline through the conference transition.
