SALT LAKE CITY — It’s not every day your son is starting his first collegiate game as the team’s quarterback. Unfortunately for Regina Huntley, the mother of newly-named starting quarterback Tyler Huntley, there’s a chance she may be forced to miss out on seeing it in person.

After returning home to Florida from Utah where she had spent the weekend watching her son compete in the University of Utah’s spring football game in April, Huntley was traveling to work the next Monday when she was broadsided by a semitruck, severely injuring her in the crash. Although fortunate to escape with her life, the next four months have been spent recovering from the pain and discomfort associated with the crash.

“When she called me on the phone, she kinda could hardly much talk,” Tyler Huntley recalled, “so my dad did all the talking for her.”

On Aug. 16, she underwent neck surgery to repair some of the damage resulting from the crash. The surgery has kept her relatively immobile in the week following, limiting her opportunities to travel and see her son in his first start against North Dakota.

But with Utah’s season-opening game less than a week away, the chances of seeing him in person remain unknown. She still needs to be cleared by her doctor before undertaking a cross-country trip to Utah.

“If I get cleared, we’re going to travel out there,” she said. “If not, oh boy, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I want to be there.”

“It’s something that we don’t want to miss,” Regina’s husband and Tyler Huntley’s father, Ricky, added. “You don’t get a chance to see your son play his first collegiate start (every day). You really want to be there for something like that. But we have to adhere to what the doctor has to say because we don’t want to have any complications. But if he allows us to, we’re going to make those reservations from the doctor’s office.”

Tyler Huntley said seeing his mother go through the recovery process has given him “another chip on my shoulder to play for her.”

“I really hope and pray that she’ll be able to come out and my dad, too,” he said. “If they don’t, I know they’re going to be watching me through TV and I know it’s going to be just like they’re there.”

Although Utah will be paired up with FCS opponent North Dakota, a game that should be easily in Utah’s control, it’s a first for Huntley and the culmination of all the hard work he’s put into earning the starting job.

“I get the chills throughout the day while I’m watching film and everything just waiting for Thursday to come around,” Huntley said, talking about his excitement to get his first start. “That’s all I’m waiting for.”

Huntley earned the starting job Saturday after a strong showing in spring and an even stronger showing in fall, impressing both offensive coordinator Troy Taylor and head coach Kyle Whittingham. His mobility and penchant to extend plays were key to winning the job, but it was his accuracy and overall stellar completion percentage that sealed the deal, according to Whittingham.

Following a meeting with Taylor Saturday, where Huntley was informed he would be the team’s starter, he turned to his parents first to deliver the news, calling them at their home in Florida.

“He had said: ‘Dad, I got the job,’” Ricky Huntley recalled. “We were waiting for his phone call all week long, so I jumped out of the seat and I kinda did a small yell.”

Regina Huntley had been asleep in a nearby recliner, recovering when Ricky yelled.

“Regina woke up and looked at me like, ‘what’s going on?’” Ricky said. “I told her that Tyler informed us that he got the job, so she was elated. It was just something that felt good for us because all the things that are going on with her surgery ... it was just like, that’s the type of news we needed to hear. It just blessed our heart.”

Tyler Huntley said the conversation was a reminder that “my hard work has paid off a little bit.

“They felt the same thing and they were just happy for me,” he added. “It just gave me the chills because they were happy for me.”

Huntley’s path to Utah

Football has always been Tyler Huntley’s world. Although a reserved kid in the public, Huntley comes alive on the football field.

“When he’s with his football team, he’s a totally different person,” Regina Huntley said. “He just spunks up.”

Throughout his childhood, Huntley would sleep with a football, making it the sporting equivalent to a stuffed animal or comfort blanket. The night before a game, Huntley would shower and “put all his (football) stuff on to be ready for the game on Saturday,” Regina said.

Huntley excelled wherever he played and was eventually named the Florida Gatorade State Player of the Year his senior year at Hallandale High School, where he was teammates with receiver Demari Simpkins and running back Zack Moss.

As a three-star quarterback, Huntley committed to Florida Atlantic University prior to his senior season, intending to stay home for his collegiate career. But former Utah assistant coach Dennis Erickson, who had ties to the state of Florida from his days as the head coach of the University of Miami, took a chance on Huntley and offered him a scholarship across the country at Utah.

Huntley knew he’d likely land a starting job as a freshman at FAU, but the offer from Utah had him intrigued. He and Simpkins traveled to Utah on a visit and fell in love with the program.

“We looked into the depth chart of Utah at the time and we had Brandon (Cox) with his junior year and we found out that Troy (Williams) would be coming over in his junior year,” Ricky Huntley recalled. “I let him know right ahead of time that it’s going to be tough. You’re going to have to go up and compete because most likely they will give the experience to one of the older guys. You’ll have to work and get in there.”

But Huntley was determined and decommitted from FAU and immediately committed to Utah with Simpkins in August 2015. Eventually, the pair helped convince Utah that Moss needed a scholarship offer as well. Moss had previously committed to Miami, but eventually committed to Utah nearly four months later, joining his friends for a new adventure.

“It was so exciting to know that at least these guys wanted to come up with Tyler. It was really, really nice,” Ricky Huntley said. “We were afraid that he’d be up there by himself and of course when things don’t go right, you expect to have someone that you know around you to kind of ease the frustration. It was nice to know they were able to come up together and confide in each other when things are not going their way.”

The trio had lofty expectations and planned to be starters by their sophomore season — a goal eventually realized this season. Simpkins and Moss had individual games as a starter their freshman season, but now look to compliment Huntley as full-time starters in the upcoming season.

“I always had the mindset that I was going to be the starter,” Huntley said. “But it’s not just going to be handed to you over time. You’ve just got to come out here and work.”

“We set our bar high,” Moss said. “We wanted to come in and help this team as quickly as possible as we could.”

Utah features an offense that is familiar to what the Hallandale trio ran in high school. And for Huntley, it’s an opportunity to “make a lot of plays” with all its options, whether it be passing or utilizing his own running ability. However it works, Huntley will keep the defenses guessing.

“In high school, he’ll take off running and people expect him to run,” Regina Huntley said. “Tyler would get right there within feet of the marker and let it rip. You never know what he’s going to do. So he’s so excited about that offense.”

Utah will open up its regular season against North Dakota on Thursday, Aug. 31 at 5:30 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks.

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