Way Too Early 2024 Prediction

Depends on when the Colorado & BYU games are. The later in the season, the better. Both teams have decent first stringers but their backups are atrocious. I assume we’ll play both teams later in the year, and thus will move down in the order… I think the Arizona and Oklahoma State games will be the toughest for us. Not too concerned about UCF.

Would be very disappointed if we lost:
Colorado – we are still deeper and better.
BYU – we are just better and we owe them one.
Baylor, Iowa State, Houston, ASU, SUU – Again, we are just better.

We could lose:

Arizona. They are headed in the right direction and whipped us this year. We owe them a loss. UCF. Like Extra said, a cross country game is always a tough game. That being said, especially if this game is early in the year, we should win this one. Ok State. They are a solid Big 12 team. Outside of Arizona, the most solid team out there.

50/50 game: TCU.

TCU is a good program and a legit rival. They will be up for us. This game will always be good.

If we go 2-2 with the could to 50/50 games, that is a 10-2 season.

It’s crazy how bad our schedule is compared to this year. On the one hand, undefeated seasons are back on the schedule. On the other hand…we are essentially back in the MWC.

Using this year’s team talent composite (yes, I know that we won’t know the 2024 roster until sometime during fall camp):

In order listed at FBS Schedules. Utah’s composite score for 2023 was 722.55. Higher ranked P5 on road = 0.59, higher ranked P5 at home = o.697

Southern Utah = 1.000
Baylor (678.00) = 0.697
@ Arizona State (687.01) = 0.590
@ Colorado (711.87) = 0.590
@ Houston (670.25) = 0.590
@ Oklahoma State (649.79) = 0.590
@ Central Florida (653.97) = 0.590
Arizona = (687.01) = 0.697
parochial school (576.25) = 0.697
Texas Christian (768.25) = 0.410
Iowa State (638.87) = 0.697

We’re a year out so who really know what the rosters will look like next September? At the same time, knowing that Utah will be returning most, if not all of it’s top players from 2022/2023, it’s not unreasonable to believe that Utah will have the higher talent composite in 10 of the 11 known games and if we assume that the 12th will be a G5, that goes even higher. Adding up the win %’s gives a projected record of 7.15 – 3.85. P5 home against G5 is 0.85 so you now get 8-4 which I would consider the floor for 2023.

If we go with that actual win % by team instead of all P5 v P5, you get SUU (1.000) + Baylor (0.812) + ASU (0.667) + CU (0.618) + Houston (1.000) + OSU (0.409) + UCF (0.667) + UA (0.867) + parochial school (0.833) + TCU (0.424) + ISU (0.677) equals 7.97 – 3.03. G5 home game gets you to 8.82 – 3.18.

If Vegas gives a prop bet of 8.5 wins or less, the numbers say take the over

CU is bad and Dion can’t coach. He can do a lot of things, but coaching isn’t one of them. He got everyone he wanted with the hype train and the NIL money that came with it. He brought in an entire team of transfers and they still couldn’t make a bowl game losing 7 straight. You think he’ll have better luck getting top line talent now that he’s shown he’s not some kind of special football wizard? The Dion experiment has a clear conclusion. Scooping up transfers that couldn’t cut it at other programs can only get you so far and he obviously doesn’t have any interest in building a team culture and developing players for long-term success. That thing is a train wreck.