Could Utah's Lance Holtzclaw Be A Future U.S. Senator or Even President?

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FRISCO, Texas – Most of the objectives that I had the past two days at Big 12 Football Media Days, were just that, football. Like everybody else, I can’t wait for the start of the college football season. The issues of Brendan Sorsby, reform that is needed to save college athletics and all other politics currently woven into the fabric of football and Saturdays in the fall are not what I signed up for. I want football and so do all of you. 

Utah defensive end Lance Holtzclaw, a 6-3, 245 pound senior from Boston and former Washington Huskies player wants football too.

“Our summer has been amazing and we have Steve Saunders from the Baltimore Ravens as our new head strength coach and him installing this new program he is running, the proof is in the pudding,” Holtzclaw said. “When you see us come out this season you are going to see a transformation. You’ll see how explosive we are and how much lean muscle mass we have.”

Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Holtzclaw (far right) chasing an Arizona State running back last season.

Holtzclaw is looking to make a big impact and is listed as a starter for new coach and former Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley.

“It’s great to have a defensive-oriented head coach,” Holtzclaw said. “He was  my defensive coordinator and play caller last season. Now, he’s my head coach, which makes me feel super close to my head coach.”

I sought out Holtzclaw not because of his football, and he may be a huge contributor to Utah this season. He had 26 tackles last season and a sack and a half. In his last year at Washington in 2024 he played in the College Football Playoff, although he only had eight tackles, one sack, and a fumble recovery.

This summer I watched Holtzclaw sitting in a conference room in the U.S. Capitol addressing the Senate Commerce Committee, including chairperson Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. He was there alongside Hall of Fame football coach and now ESPN GameDay’s Nick Saban, former NBC Sports chief and currently Notre Dame athletics director Peter Bevacqua, former Colorado, Ohio State, and West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee and Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould. 

Pokes Report

Across the witness table from left to right, Nick Saban, Pete Bevacqua, E. Gordon Gee, Teresa Gould, and Utah senior defensive end Lance Holtzclaw.

Now that’s a big chair for anybody including a soon-to-be college football senior.

“I was sitting next to the Pac-12 commissioner (Gould) and she was giving me some compliments afterward and Sen. Crus was giving me compliments,” Holtzclaw said. “At the end of the day it was all fun, a tremendous experience. It was also an opportunity that people like me, a student-athlete doesn’t normally have. It’s a high-pressure situation and as football players that is what we do, deal with high-pressure situations.”

He didn’t just deal with it. If it was an exam, he aced it. If it was third-and-eight with the game on the line, he sacked the quarterback.

“I have experienced the impact of NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment, evolving eligibility rules, and the many changes shaping modern college athletics,” Holtzclaw said. “These issues are often discussed through the lens of policy, economics, and governance, but behind every decision are real students balancing academics, athletics, personal development, and preparation for life.”

That couldn’t have been said better. Holtzclaw told me in the end zone of The Star in Frisco that he was conscious that he was representing his teammates and all college athletes, who are now getting money, some big money to play the sport. However, he told me that he feels that the game and the real objective, a college degree is getting lost in all of the money, transfers, and arguments over guard rails like the Protect College Sports Act bill he was testifying on.

“It’s extremely important to how the careers of these young men and women go out and how they’re developed in their time in college athletics,” Holtzclaw said. “There’s so much that goes on with life development, that goes on with your education, that goes on with your life experiences, and I feel like that leadership portion being strong in a system and in a program, is extremely important. So, when pieces move around a lot, it can alter that sometimes.”

He told me that he wants to try to prevent the value of the game and of an education being lost in the finances of what is currently going down. Yes, the athletes need to be compensated, but they need the opportunities and the clear vision and motivation to take advantage of those opportunities. 

“We’re getting so far away from what the mission is here,” he said. “We still have to be here to play football and learn the lessons and develop from the game. Then we need to get that degree, that education. That can’t be lost.”

Now, to get silly. You can just imagine when he came back to campus in Salt Lake City after his June 4 testimony on Capitol Hill.

“I came back and they (teammates) were all calling me ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Mr. Senator’ or saluting me. It was hilarious,” Holtzclaw said. “Those guys were appreciative of what I was doing and they were supportive of me.”

Anybody who saw it had to be impressed. I was very impressed and I asked him if that was a transformational experience, the kind that could lead him into politics and being a leader beyond the Utah team leadership council, which he is on.

“I felt like it was an educational piece and I want to learn so much. It has opened my mind up to opportunities I never knew existed,” Holtzclaw said.

I looked at him and told him that I would vote for him.

“You’d vote for me,” he responded. “I hope a lot of people would vote for me and if I’m in that situation I hope I get people’s votes and I hope they love hearing the things I have to say.”

I’m looking forward to watching No. 15 in red make tackles for Utah this season, but I will be looking for that future candidate from Utah or maybe back in his home state of Massachusetts. I have a strange feeling that we haven’t seen the last of Lance Holtzclaw in Washington D.C.