Best case/worst case scenario

[Utah]

Utah best case scenario:

Utah runs through their schedule, going 3-1 or 2-2 vs USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon. They win the south. They play a top 4 Stanford team and beat them in a hard fought OT game. They go to the playoffs and lose in the title game. I’m still not sure we are deep enough to win two games in a row like that. Or they win the Rose Bowl.

Best case is pretty easy. Win the PAC-12, then win your next game.

Utah worst case scenario:

Utah “struggles” vs SUU like they did vs No Colorado, where the game is not out of reach by halftime. They end up up winning 38-7 or so. 1-0

Utah then faces BYU and it is a game like the 2010 game…Utah wins, but wins ugly and at the last minute, 17-16. 2-0

Utah then goes to face SJSU and wins 34-10. 3-0

Utah turns the ball over a lot vs USC and loses, 35-10. 3-1 (0-1)

Utah beats Cal on the road, ala 2012, 49-27. 4-1 (1-1)

Utah’s DL is just too good and Hansen plays LB vs Arizona and is starting to get a rep similar to Scooby Wright. Solomon FINALLY has bad TO’s vs us (cause he’s done it vs every other team it seems) Utah wins 34-21. 5-1 (2-1)

We take OSU out to the woodshed. 38-10. 6-1 (3-1)

Once again, we have a totally hard fought game, once again, no one can score, once again, we fall on our faces in the red zone. UCLA wins 21-17. 6-2 (3-2)

Washington – We beat them soundly last year in Washington. Only Stanford beat them worse last year. The problem Washington has is that you can’t bully a bully. We win again off three Browning INT’s. 34-21. 7-2 (4-2)

ASU is falling apart. Graham knows his time is done. Our defense is just too good. 8-2 (5-2)

Oregon comes in and exacts revenge on us. They are just too fast, Prukup is too good, our DB’s give up too many big plays and our offense has too many TO’s. 8-3 (5-3)

We FINALLY have depth. We FINALLY come into the game not limping. We FINALLY put these guys away. They have 3 TO’s, we run the ball 40+ times. 34-10 Utah beats Colorado. 9-3 (6-3)

We finish tied for #2 with USC as UCLA wins the south division. UCLA goes to the playoff as the south gets stronger. Utah loses a couple commits to UCLA.

The final order in the PAC-12 looks like this:

UCLA – Playoff
Stanford – Rose Bowl
Oregon – Alamo Bowl
WSU – Holiday Bowl
USC – Foster Farms
Utah – Las Vegas. We get screwed again because the Vegas Bowl takes Boise St and they don’t want Boise St vs Washington again so they cut a deal to have us fall to the Vegas Bowl again. The silver lining is that Troy Williams takes a big step forward after having another month of practices and we beat Boise St pretty well. 45-28.
Washington – Sun Bowl
Arizona – Motel 6 Bowl
Colorado – Some at large bowl
ASU
Cal
OSU

We end up the year 10-3 and ranked #15.

I don’t think the math works at all on this level with all the other teams. If we end up 9-3 and 6-3 in conference, I don’t think we’d end up in the Vegas Bowl. BUT, you did ask for my worst case scenario (right, right, you did ask for it?!?).

[noneyadb]

One question- Troy Williams or Dakota Prukop?

Prukop 2015-  216-344 62.8% 3025 yds 28 TDs 10 INTs  5-6

vs  SUU   18-30 163 yds  1 TD  2 INT

Williams 2015- 180-265 67.9% 2750 yds  31 TDs 4 INTs  11-0

Oregon is overrated this year. Losing Vernon Adams and their false DPOY is going have a bigger effect than people are expecting.

Stanford is going to be a plug and play but will likely take a step back.

Washington/UCLA should take a step forward, but Utah was able to move the ball against both teams and had several chances to beat UCLA.

If the offense is improved I can see Utah beating everybody on their schedule.

 

[noneyadb]

Washington St will be the team to beat in the North.

[Utah]

You know, I might agree with you here. I’m leaning WSU or Oregon to win it this year.

[Anonymous]

Washington or Wazzu. Oregon no way they sniff the Championship game. Stanford still has a 100% Heisman on their team and so I put them in the hunt.

[Utah]

Why not Oregon? They return everyone but Prukup, and they have shown they can win 9 games with 100 different QB’s. Their defense can’t be any worse, can it?

I’m just not sold on Washington. Everyone talks about their last four games as proof that they will be great this year. They played ASU and OSU, two mediocre teams. They then beat WSU without Falk. Falk may be the best QB in the country. Then they beat up a G5 team in some crappy bowl.

Versus ranked/getting votes schools last year, they were 1-4…and their win was vs a Falk-less WSU.

In games vs the top half of the PAC-12, Washington was 2-4. Their wins vs a drunk Sark and a Falk-less WSU.

In those games, Browning threw 1 TD and 6 INT’s.

I’m not sold yet. They are the BYU of the PAC-12. Do a lot vs the crap teams, fail vs the good teams, then talk about how great you are because Hoffman had 6 TD’s vs some FCS school.

[noneyadb]

Once Vernon Adams went down in the Bowl game Oregon was abysmal.

[Anonymous]

I love preseason just to see what you think will unfold. I see Oregon really sucking this season. Maybe not as much as Chip Kelly will suck at San Fran but they will suck.

[Utah]

I completely agree with you. I have a rep of being waaay too optimistic. I said that Utah would win 20 games the last two years. We won 19. I was REAMED for those predictions.

The thing I can’t get out of my mind is that our WR’s and QB’s…I’ve never seen any of them play. I saw a TON of Thompson and Wilson. I felt like I knew what to expect.

Those two are complete wildcards. If Williams doesn’t turn the ball over, we are a 9-10 win team. If he is a solid, efficient QB, the sky is the limit. If he turns the ball over and we go to Huntley…we are a 7-8 win team.

Prukop did face better competition than Williams as far as Prukop goes.

Stanford? Just the last couple days, I’ve been looking deeper and deeper into them. I think they might have a down year this year. They were so efficient passing the ball last year. Can they be that good again this year? I don’t know. If they aren’t, then their run game will suffer big time.

Look at Stanford’s passing yards vs Utah’s in PAC-12 play. Stanford threw for 34 more yards TOTAL. That’s it. BUT, they were very efficient. Utah wasn’t. So, they averaged over 200 yards rushing per game. Utah was around 160 yards rushing per game. HUGE difference.

If Stanford’s throw game goes from third most efficient team to fifth or sixth, their rushing yards will drop by 20-40 per game. That is a HUGE drop.

Oregon still have incredible holes on defense. BUT, they sure have a TON of skill players. Look at last year. They still won 9 games by outscoring people. I think they will be in the 9-10 range again.

I’m not sold on Washington, but I have a HUGE bias against Petersen and I never call them correctly. Take my prediction and add a couple wins to their total.

 

[Wilson’s Mustache]

I still think there a strong possibility that Utah could finish worse than 8-4, but you usually have some pretty good predictions & its still the preseason so……bring on the Rose Bowl/PLayoffs baby!

[Tacoma Ute]

I’m hoping to win the PAC but our worst case scenario is far below 9-3.

[Anonymous]

I think Utah has around 4 guaranteed wins on the schedule.  Guess which ones I think the four are?

[Utah]

The first three games and OSU.

[Anonymous]

Easy right?

[Author]

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