Countdown to Kickoff: No. 75 Simote Pepa

We’re a quarter of the way on the countdown to kickoff and today is about a recently returned LDS missionary that could cause a lot of problems for opponents in 2021, defensive tackle Simote Pepa.

As has already been discussed at length, the Utes’ defensive tackle position is extremely loaded. Therefore, the 6-foot-3 and 320 pounder will have to make the most of his reps when they’re given to him.

Pepa returned from his mission just in time for spring ball, so as expected, his conditioning wasn’t up to par. Sources have told UteNation that early on Pepa was an unstoppable nightmare, but his lack of conditioning finally caught up to him, as well as the offensive line figuring him out.

Whether it’s this season or next, big things will be expected of the Bingham native as it looks like he could be a force for years to come.

UteNation take

Depending on how his offseason strength and conditioning goes, it’s very likely that Pepa will be a secret weapon that Utah can utilize in spurts—especially for key run-defending downs. He’s an absolute mauler with imposing size and as mentioned above, at times he was unstoppable in spring ball.

As a sophomore at Bingham, he stepped in when the highly-regarded Jay Tufele went down with an injury and plenty around that program said there was no drop in production. Some even said that he even outperformed the initial season expectations that the staff had for Tufele, pre-injury. From there, he went onto an impressive high school career.

Alex remembers Pepa’s recruitment

Part of the Bingham Three—Pepa, Junior Tafuna and Lolani Langi—he didn’t commit to Utah until signing day 2019. However, Pepa was a longtime Utah lean and often talked to me in our conversations like he was already a part of the program.

The three-star defensive tackle (ranked no. 37 at the position) chose Utah over Wisconsin, Tennessee, Oregon, Nebraska, Arizona, Washington, BYU and others.