I think it’s a little “all-of-the-above”. Jacksonville is a good team, but they’ve had some head-scratchers like beating now-2nd-ranked Duke back in February, then following that up by narrowly defeating Mercer (4-9) and Cleveland St (5-6). And there was nothing impressive about their 5-pt win over Lindenwood (2-8), who up until 2-months ago, was a Div-II team, who would’ve struggled to beat Westminster.
That said, it’s looking like Jacksonville’s best games were at Home, and you can be sure Utah’s 4,300-ft altitude provided the Utes with a bit better of an edge than we’ll be enjoying up in the Allegheny’s 1,200-ft, but we should still be able to run better.
Utah also scheduled very aggressively early in the season, so where it comes to “big games”, Utah is accustomed to playing to the final whistle.
Sadly, I didn’t get to see all of our games, as three occurred while I was still at work, and several of our roadies weren’t broadcast. But from what I’d seen, I believe that Utah and Air Force are the only ASUN teams capable of beating Jacksonville this year, and they won’t be easy. Last year, we’d lost in the title game in the rubbermatch between us and Robert Morris, and Jacksonville is a far better team this year than RMU was last. And I think we’re about the same. So we’re going to really need to bring our “A” game, and hope that JU plays like they did vs. Mercer, Cleveland St, and/or Lindenwood.