ESPN has the Utes as #13 Going into Next Season

[The Miami Ute]

13. Utah Utes
2023 record: 8-5, 5-4 Pac-12

Expected key losses: CB Miles Battle, G Keaton Bills, S Sione Vaki, S Cole Bishop, WR Devaughn Vele, CB JaTravis Broughton, RB Ja’Quinden Jackson, QB Bryson Barnes, QB Nate Johnson

Expected key additions: RB Anthony Woods, CB Kenan Johnson, TE Carsen Ryan, OT Isaiah Garcia, QB Isaac Wilson, LB Hunter Andrews, S Maurice Evans

2024 outlook: Injuries derailed the Utes this past season, as quarterback Cameron Rising and tight end Brant Kuithe missed the entire campaign while recovering from knee injuries and tailback Micah Bernard missed all but two games with an injury. The Utes struggled with consistency on offense and lost four of their last six games, including a 14-7 defeat against Northwestern in the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl. There’s hope that Kuithe and Bernard might return with Rising in 2024, when Utah jumps to the Big 12. Four sophomores and one freshman started on the offensive line in the bowl game. Jackson, the team’s leading rusher with 797 yards, entered the transfer portal, as did backup quarterbacks Barnes and Johnson. Three starters will have to be replaced in the secondary.

[Central Coast Ute]

I like the high ranking, but I’ll temper my excitement until I see the product on the field.

[Tony (admin)]

Same. I’m not going to fall into the Kool-Aid trap again. Lol. 😂 

[ryynoo]

Wilner has us at 5 on his 2024 preseason ballot and explains why.

Wilner’s Prediction

[Utah]

Wilner’s prediction is more spot on. We should be a top 10, borderline top 5 team going into next season.

[Trailgoat]

Copy. Some unknowns going into next season. Let the off season analysis begin :)! Utah goes where Rising goes. Utah is still a young team overall.
!. QB situation is volatile with no intermediate back-up at the moment. I have a scary feeling we have not seen the last of Barnes taking snaps at Utah (giving myself a down vote for typing this) unless Utah leverages a current player in the portal having a role and a future at QB. Big ask. Not sold on Rose, high hopes for Wilson.
2. How many players will be injured coming out of Fall camp? Happens every season at Utah more than other teams I closely follow in college football.
3. Defense should be fine. Scalley and his crew filled some open spots in the secondary all to be coached up by and ready to go under Shah’s direction. Losing Vaki and Bishop is a bummer. Ritchie’s Frosh performance numbers in half the Covid season were right on par with Bishops breakout Freshman year. Some promising talent. LB and DLine, solid.
4. Oline is a big question mark IMO. Very young and inexperienced losing the two best players. Have faith in Harding. Fall camp injuries is a thing to watch.
5. Kuithe? Pitman? McClain? WR portal pick-up should be interesting.
Utah is as good of better talent wise compared to teams in the B12. Coaching top tier of course. Can Utah get out of the road loss funk? Can Rising stay Healthy? Avoid the 1-2 WTF loses? Let UofA and KSU get all the pre-season hype. Utes play better out of the spotlight. Utah has a very good shot of winning the B12.

[Central Coast Ute]

I also think Barnes will be back. Other players like NJ and JJ are already at other schools because they’re wanted there. BB is still in the portal…

[2008 National Champ]

1. I’ve been told on here for the last 8 months that no QB would ever have come to Utah in 2023 because Rising might play. Now that we know Rising will play in 2024, it seems like no QB would ever come to Utah. Or have the goalposts moved and now people are willing to challenge the “goat”

[Charlie]

I don’t think a portal QB comes here because he wants to challenge Rising. They would come because the transfer options for very likely starters are few and are gone. Lots of portal QBs will simply need to go to teams with good QBs in the room. Some may view an opportunity if QB1, God forbid, is injured or some have more than 1 year of eligibility. At this point portal QB are not going where they want or to ideal spots, they may simply be going to the best spot with much considered like NIL.

[Utah]

If I was a transfer QB, I’d wait until after spring ball if I had any options. Wait until there is an injury and see if there is a better fit than what they have right now.

[Utah]

Let’s take a step back and review our players we are losing:

Miles Battle: Solid CB. He is replaceable. He wasn’t bad, wasn’t great.
Bills: Multi-year starter. Will be tough to replace.
Vaki: He and Jackson are so overrated…now hear me out. Not overrated as in bad. They were great. But overrated in that it will be easy to replace their production. Vaki playing offense hurt his effectiveness on defense. And while his offense won us the game vs USC, he only had 70 yards rushing or more…one time. Only once. He wasn’t carrying our offense. And he only had receptions that had positive yards in two games. Now, he was amazing those two games…but that’s it. I’d love to have him back and we’d be better with him, but we can replace his production.
Bishop: This is the player we can’t replace immediately.
Vele: He was very good, but every receiver in this offense is replaceable.
Broughton: Whoever plays will be better.
Jackson: Again, great player, but we can replace his production because he was hurt all the time.
Barnes/Jackson: You can’t get any worse.

The only player we lost that we can’t replace their production is Bishop. That’s it.

We won 8 games with no QB and no RB’s. Our defense is coming back largely intact. And as much as it will sting to lose Bishop, all we do is replace NFL safeties with NFL safeties.

Scalley will have an answer because he always does.

So, our offense will be better. Our defense should be about the same.

Oh, and our schedule will be exponentially easier. Let’s compare this year to next year:

@UW vs @OSU – Easier in 2024. Oklahoma State is good. They ain’t UW good.
Oregon vs UCF – Easier in 2024. UCF is on their way to being good. They ain’t Oregon.
@OSU (ranked) vs TCU. Easier in 2024. TCU was 5-7 this year. Is Dykes a good coach? We don’t know. Maybe he is. Maybe he won with Patterson’s kids. We will see. TCU has 7-8 games they could easily lose.
@Arizona vs Arizona. Easier in 2024. This game is in SLC and we won’t have a backup defense, no RB and no QB.
UCLA (ranked) vs BYU. Easier in 2024. UCLA spent most of the year ranked. BYU didn’t go to a bowl game. BYU sucks.
USC vs Iowa State – easier in 2024. Whatever issues USC has, they are better than Iowa State.
Florida vs Houston – easier in 2024. Houston went 4-8 in 2023.
@Baylor vs Baylor. Easier game in 2024 as the game is in SLC.
Colorado vs @Colorado – harder in 2024, but not really. We should win. Colorado is struggling for a bowl.
Cal vs Utah State – easier game in 2024
ASU vs @ASU – Wash. Both games are should be wins.
Weber State vs Southern Utah – Irrelevant. Both suck.

So, we should have an offense that puts up 38 a night, a defense that holds teams to 20 a game and an easier schedule.

The goal is playoffs and winning the Big 12. Anything less than a Big 12 title game is a disappointment.

[AlohaUte]

I think you are vastly understating the value of Vaki and how much he brought to this team. You also forgot the impact of losing Ellis. He was a monster this season and his production won’t be easy to replace. I’d say that Ellis, Vaki, and Bishop are difficult losses to overcome. We will be fine, I agree with your overall sentiment, but I don’t think it’s as easy you made it sound.

[Utah]

Sure. Vaki was an absolute beast for two games for us. Versus Cal he ran for 158 yards.

The next week we played USC. He ran 9 times for 68 yards and had 5 catches for 149 yards. Two amazing games.

But he got figured out. After that:

5 carries for 11 yards vs Oregon.
No touches vs ASU.
1 carry for -1 vs UW.
4 carries for 10 yards vs Arizona.
7 carries for 68 yards vs Colorado.

I freaking love him for those two games. He was incredible, he gave us the pig farmer, we kicked USC’s ass once again.

BUT…He played in 7 games and was elite in two, a nonfactor in 4 and solid in one.

His production is replaceable. He’s a great player, but we will miss him defensively a lot more than we miss him offensively.

And Elliss. 12 sacks. Wowza. He will be missed. But Fano is a star, just like Elliss. The question with Fano is if he can stay healthy. He was by far BYU’s best player but he got hurt. And for us, he had 3.5 sacks in limited action before he got hurt.

I don’t think he will be as good as Elliss…at first. But he isn’t a big step back.

Our biggest loss is by far Bishop. We can replace everyone else, or get close to replacing, but Bishop just did everything. That is our biggest worry.

[RoboUte]

“The question with Fano is if he can stay healthy”

You’re convinced about the offense but you should be asking this question about the QB we’ll allegedly have next year.

[DataUte]

Am I mis-remembering that Elliss wasn’t even going to be a starter? Injuries put him in there and he took advantage and turned into an AA. Amazing. You never know which DE all of a sudden pops into national awards.

[The Miami Ute]

That’s correct. He wasn’t projected as a starter at the start of the season but definitely made the best of the opportunity.

[2008 National Champ]

It was going to be a 3 way rotation between Filinger, O’Toole and Elliss. Not sure it really matters who the starter(s) are with the way they are rotated. Van and O’Toole being out week 1 helped Elliss but he had popped the year before and was going to get plenty of reps even if everyone was fully healthy.

Fano was the one who got the real bump in playing time due to the others being out.

[RoboUte]

Did anyone tell them our whole ass team transferred out or declared for the draft and we’re really not replacing them in the portal?

[PhiladelphiaUte]

The high ranking could be a product of a less challenging schedule though. Easier slates tend to result in a greater amount of wins. And more wins brings about higher rankings. Phil Steele points this out every year when he differentiates between “where teams are expected to finish by season’s end” and “how good a team really is”.

[Utah]

I agree. We won 8 games with no QB, RB, and down two TE’s.

Our offense will be better. A lot better. Cam put up 38 points per game in the P12. The Big 12 is a lot easier.

And like you said, our schedule is WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY easier. WAY. Easier.

We should win 10+ next year and we should look good doing it.

Look at our five hardest games in 2023:

UW
Oregon
Oregon State
Arizona
USC

I’m not sure we face a team better than UCLA next year. Our five toughest will be:

Arizona
@Oklahoma State
@UCF
TCU
BYU

It’s not even comparable.

The 2024 Arizona game will be easier than the 2023 game because we won’t have over half our team out and the game is in SLC.

Oklahoma State is tough. Real tough. Like UCLA/Arizona/Oregon State tough. But they ain’t UW or Oregon and they don’t have the talent of USC.

And TCU…we don’t know what they are. Are they good? Is Dykes a good coach? Or did he just win with Patterson’s recruits? We will see. That game could be our toughest…or one of the easier games.

And BYU. BYU sucks. But they always play us hard. Hopefully we take them seriously this time and just whip them like we should.

UCF might end up being our toughest game. It’s on the road, which is always tough and their recruiting has really gotten better. Can they put it together? We shall see.

Our schedule is so much easier next year.

[DataUte]

If only the dang schedule would come out!

[PhiladelphiaUte]

I wouldn’t put the tdS as one of our tougher opponents. Tech and Iowa St will be tougher than ybu-p.

[J Rocksville]

I think 13 feels about right. 5 seems way high, but even being on these preseason lists after having a “down” year and visibly losing some pretty important players to transfer and the NFL is a sign that we’re finally being respected. We’re not a team that needs 3-4 years to rebuild after a top ten season anymore. We’re a team that is expected to reload and compete every year. That’s the kind of sentiment we need if we want to be included in the next phase of consolidation.

[Author]

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