I think Utah wins four more games. Cal, ASU, Arizona, and Colorado. USC, Oregon, and UW are L’s in my opinion. 8-4 wouldn’t be the worst considering the injuries and offense. Though some might think it’s a wasted season because of the defense, and not making the CCG. Vegas Bowl vs a B1G team wouldn’t be all that bad.
Not to make everything about Rising, but if Cam doesn’t come back or comes back as a shell of himself, I think this is the most likely outcome (and would actually represent our ceiling).
That said, if Cam comes back and is playing at his peak, I think we can easily be a 10-2 team, and if the stars align, we could maybe even be 11-1.
I agree – 8-4 is reasonable with the current players playing (still need to make improvements). Get Cam and a few more people back and 10-2 not out of the question, even ‘backing into’ CCG. In some ways, it’d be nice to go to the Vegas Bowl or Holiday and win. Maybe even Alamo against Big12 (might be OU or 3rd place team). I didn’t realize we have lost our last 4 bowl games. I remember when Kyle was 10-1 or something like that.
Yep, the “you don’t want any part of Utah in a bowl game” luster has worn off since the competition change from bowl eligible opponents to conference championship contenders.
Utah also used to play mainly in the first bowl games of the year. Not sure if that correlates but perhaps Whitt does better with about 10 days of prep and it’s easier to keep the team focused than with a longer break that has Christmas and/or New Year’s as a distraction.
Agree. They were just against really great teams. No fault there (or Cam getting injured in both). The Alamo Bowl prior to that, well, it was well documented that Huntley et al. were just there to have fun and didn’t really take it too seriously and got hammered by Texas. The Holiday Bowl against NW? That’s just one of those you have a bad game.
The solution is to always make the rose bowl then because I’ve never seen a bigger joke on the field than Utah in the Texas bowl game. But Utah in the Northwestern bowl game is giving it a hell of a run for its money.
We’ve had some really good Vegas Bowls! 😉 It was a more minor bowl, but now is what, #3 in the PAC (NY6, Alamo, Vegas, Holiday, Sun is the pecking order?).
I do wonder how all the bowl alignments will change next year. But we also have the expanded playoff, so it’ll be a whole new system.