I think schedules are best looked at broken into chunks. Now, this is early, and I don’t know other team’s depth charts and have limited knowledge on players leaving early.
As we know, this year’s schedule was insanely hard. If we had Arizona’s schedule, we have 9+ wins. We had the toughest PAC-12 schedule this year.
It stays the same next year. Safe to say it’s insanely hard again? Well, maybe not.
Let’s look at it:
Section 1: Weber State, Northern Illinois, Washington. Weber is a win. They are good, but they shouldn’t beat us. Northern Ill is a BYU level team, without the baggage. 2-0. Now, Washington. It’s at home. Washington has to play Auburn and a solid FCS team before us. Advantage us. BUT, let’s give Washington the win. 2-1
Next: @WSU, @Stanford, Arizona. WSU will have a new QB and has USC before us. Win Utah. 3-1. Stanford will lose Love and that’s kind of everything they’ve got. They are very talented, but I’m not sure they are Bryce Love talented. Also, they play Oregon and Norte Dame before us. Oh, and I’ll be at that game. Utah, win. 4-1.
Arizona. We “should” win that game. Arizona has USC and Cal before us. They will be beat up. We will be too good defensively. It’s at home. 5-1.
Section 3: USC, @UCLA, @ASU. No Darnold. At home. Should be easier than this year. They do have a very light schedule coming in. Tough game. UCLA won’t turn it around overnight. I fully expect Kelly to go after a transfer kid. ASU should be a train wreck. Stanford, USC, Utah? That’s 0-3. 8-1.
Oregon, @Colorado, BYU: Oregon loses Freeman and I don’t trust their coach. It very rarely works to keep a lesser coach on as head coach just because everyone loves him. Colorado sucks. BYU sucks. BUT, I have them at 5-6 coming into that game. They will never be dirtier and play harder than they will that night. Will be a tough game, unless we can get them earlier like the Vegas Bowl. Then, I see them quitting on Sitake.
Due to losses and teams played before us, such as Stanford playing Oregon, Notre Dame and us, the schedule is still hard (I wish we could swap out Washington for Oregon State) but nowhere near as hard as this year.
Plus, offensively and defensively, we will be LOADED. This fall will be the most talented team we’ve ever had by a long shot. Can they put it together? Let’s hope so.
Let’s win the PAC-12, win the Rose Bowl, and have a wonderful year this fall.
Utah Tech @ 
Utah 
.
