Breakdown of Utah’s Schedule

[Utah]

Alright. When looking at a schedule, you look for a couple of things: 1 – do you play multiple weeks on the road? That second game on the road is killer and usually a loss. 2 – where are your byes? Who do you play before/after and who does your opponent play before/after? 3 – Tough teams lined up together. USC a couple years ago played Alabama, Stanford, Utah State and Utah to start the year. No one goes through that undefeated.

Finally, get f**ked this year schedule wise. The Big 12 is trying to schedule UCF into the title game and us out of the title game. Teams that have byes before us: Arizona, TCU, BYU. And UCF has a bye then WVU then us.

So here it goes:

Southern Utah – win. Thursday night. Rising gets to knock the rust off the wheels. We should run away with this game. I know Whitt doesn’t like to blow out FCS teams, but if he wants to win a playoff game or two, we need to get Rising humming, get the backup QB in to get experience if Rising goes down.

Baylor – Win. We get Baylor at home and Baylor on a “short” week (not really, but we play Thursday and they play Saturday). Baylor has a lot of questions. Not saying this game will be easy, but we should win.

@Utah State – This is technically a road game, but I’m not sure a game that is a bus drive away vs a team that just got whipped by USC and is coming off a 6-7 season is really a “road” game. It’s an “Alabama” road game. We should win. Another game you hope to get the backup QB into.

@Oklahoma State – S**t. The dreaded two road games in a row. Oklahoma State has an easy game the week before this one. This will be a tough game for Utah. BUT, at the start of the 2023 season, Oklahoma was the 55th most talented team. Utah was the 33rd. 247 Team Composite Ranking 2023 Oklahoma had an average recruit rating of 85.95. Utah’s was 87.59.

Yes, I get that people transfer in and out, so let’s look at the recruiting class so far this year: Oklahoma State has the 14th best class in the Big 12 with an average recruit rating of 86.84. Utah has the fifth best overall class in the Big 12 with an average recruit rank of 88. 2024 Big 12 Recruiting Class Rank Overall

Utah is the more talented team, and by a bit. We have the better QB, better defense, better TE’s. I know that Oklahoma State’s RB is better than any RB we have, but last year…when our offense was absolutely awful, we rushed for more yards per game (182 vs 155) and both teams rushed for less than 5 yards per carry. So as good as OSU’s RB is, he didn’t carry them to some amazing heights running the ball last year.

We are better than Oklahoma State. We should win this game.

Arizona – This will be our toughest game of the year. Arizona will either be 2-1 or 3-0. If they are 3-0, they will be ranked high behind a high powered offense. We are more talented than they are (33 to 43 at the end of 2023 and avg recruit rating in 2023 was 85.85 to 87 and current class average recruit rating is 88 to 86). We are better. We should win. But they do have a great QB and they are coming off a bye week. Our most likely to lose game.

@ASU, TCU, @Houston. We should beat ASU and Houston. They aren’t as good as we are and aren’t trending up. TCU is the wild card. They should be a lot better than they were last year. Was last year a fluke? Or is their new coach not as good as Patterson and they are in the typical “fire the good coach, hire a new one, the new guy wins with the old guy’s players then gets worse every year after” cycle. TCU could be a loss. Especially when you see that TCU has a bye week before us.

We finish off the season with: BYU, @Colorado, Iowa State, @UCF. BYU is a win. We owe them a loss and we are better than they are, by a long shot. @Colorado…should be a win. Colorado went 1-8 in the PAC-12 last year. They have recruited better, they should be better, but by better we are talking about getting to 6-7 wins. If we are as good as we think we are, that’s a win. Iowa State…Iowa State went 7-6 last year and their schedule is brutal to end the year. They will be wearing down and coming to SLC. That should be a win.

That leads us to the last game of the year: @UCF. This could easily be a playoff game for the playoff. The winner goes on to the Big 12 title game, the loser gets nothing. I can’t get over how easy UCF’s schedule is. They could easily be undefeated headed into this game. They don’t play Texas Tech, they don’t play Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State. And all their hardest games are versus PAC-10 teams and they get those games at home. The Big 12 is 100% trying to elevate UCF.

90%+ Wins: Southern Utah, Baylor, Utah State, ASU, Houston, BYU, Colorado, Iowa State. That is 8 wins. We are going bowling baby!

100% Losses: None.

50/50 games: None, unless you want to put UCF in there. We are better than them, but the game will be at their home, they should have a great record, and they will be hyped.

65 win/35 loss: Oklahoma State, Arizona, TCU, UCF.

So, I don’t think we go 0-4 vs the “we can lose this game”.

A bad season for Utah: 9-3.
A good season for Utah: 10 wins.
A great season for Utah: 11-12 wins.

I fully expect us in the Big 12 title game and fighting for the #4 spot in the playoffs.

[//r00t4Utes]

2 things, and maybe both are me misreading.

Next year, there are 12 playoff teams, I do believe.

When you mentioned bye weeks, before Utah. I thought you meant bye weeks before playing Utah but I think you were just saying bye weeks scheduled before the utes get theirs. Which bY?u has the same bye week as Utah.

But that did raise a question of how many teams the utes play who are coming off a bye week.

[voxnihili]

Three total teams face Utah after a bye week.
– The aforementioned team in Provo (Utah has a bye too)
– Arizona
– TCU

[ProudUte]

I agree with most of your post, but I am not nearly as high on UCF as you. But, you are right about their easy schedule. I don not like starting our Big 12 schedule at possibly the toughest place to play in the conference. I don’t like traveling across the country on Thanksgiving week to place UCF.

[Utesbyfive]

Thanksgiving in Orlando isn’t bad at all for traveling fans.

[EagleMountainUte]

I agree on all points.

I think Utah will get TSPP’s best effort. This is hot seat cooler type win for Sitake. Still Utah should win by two scores. But weird things happen in this game.

UCF at the end of the season just feels like conceding something. Utah and TSPP had to concede something and maybe they both wanted a bye week prior. Idk. It is weird though.

[Author]

Posts