Uncle Utah's PAC-12 South pre-camp thoughts

[Utah]

Utah – Damn, we are talented. I’ll do a separate post for us, cause we are awesome.

USC – USC is the DUMBEST team ever formed in the history of dumb teams. They have as much talent as anyone. Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn St. They are right up there with any of them. BUT, they don’t have any intelligence. Not hiring Petersen and hiring Todd Helton instead (ha ha). Insisting on playing Stanford every year. Insisting on playing Notre Dame every year. Then, scheduling a team like Texas on top of all of that.

Also, Todd Helton (ha ha) has been their QB coach since 2010. Yet, they are relying on freshmen over and over again. That is a huge red flag. I mentioned it below, but the USC/Stanford game is the most important game for Utah that doesn’t involve Utah. Utah has to have Stanford beat USC. If Stanford beats USC, then USC has one loss. If Utah then beats USC, USC has two losses and Utah has the tie breaker. That allows Utah to have two losses and still win the south. If USC beats Stanford, then Utah can only finish with 1-2 losses and that is a tall order.

Texas isn’t as bad as they look. They took USC to overtime and four of their losses were to top 10 teams. Notre Dame is a damn good team. Stanford is as well.

How dumb is USC? In 2017 and 2016, if they schedule down OOC and agree to not play Stanford every year, they are in the playoffs both those years. The same for this year. Instead of opening up with Stanford and Texas in two of their first three games, they schedule down, they’d be an almost lock for the playoffs.

What a dumb team. For any of you who want Utah to schedule up, ask yourself this: If USC can’t do it, why can we? If Alabama won’t do it, why should we? Be smart. Don’t be USC. Be smart.

Colorado – We will know if they are a six win team or a 4 win team after two weeks. If they go 0-2 to start the year, they might only win 3-5 games.

ASU – Damn. They have SO much talent. Manny Wilkins might be the best QB in the conference this year. They have the best WR. Their defense is good enough. They should be a 6-8 win team, maybe a PAC-12 South dark horse. But holy crap, Herm Edwards is nuts. Listening to him all day at PAC-12 media days…he is insane. If they start out 1-3, which they easily could, he will lose that team so fast. Oregon State might be their only other win if that happens. Or they could start out 3-0 and and win 9 games. Too much talent with too much incompetence at the top.

Arizona – They should be a 6 win team. Tate has amazing potential. Sumlin is at worst, as good as RichRod. At best, he is slightly better. Their schedule is just so dang easy. I see four losses max. Luckily, those are to Oregon, Utah, USC, with Houston tossed in. If they beat Oregon and one other team, that leaves them with two losses and tied for first with the south. This might be Utah’s most important game of the year. Utah has to beat Arizona or this year could spiral down into a really bad year.

UCLA – The Chip Kelly era begins. Here is the thing about Chip Kelly. We all talk about his QB’s. Oh, he’s a QB guru, oh, he’s so smart, oh, QB’s are everything to football, QB’s, QB’s, QB’s.

Go back and look at his Oregon teams. He led the PAC-12 in rushing every year he was HC at Oregon. He is a rushing football guy. He just does it in a unique way from every other team in football. And still does. We like to talk about how the rest of college football has copied him and how “will he be able to still be unique” and blah, blah, blah.

College football hasn’t copied Kelly in any way but one: Go fast Ricky Bobby. That’s it. Kelly is a running coach who wins by rushing the football. Here is the problem:

He has no OL and no RB’s at UCLA. How much do you expect from a coach whose whole philosophy is built on running the ball when he has no ability to run the ball? I could easily see Kelly finishing with 6 or 7 losses. It will be a rough year for him.

In two years, he will have UCLA humming, if he can survive that long and have people put up with his BS that long. That is his question: Can he survive long enough to build what needs to be built? Or will he be run out of town before his garden can bloom?

My prediction for the South:

Utah/USC/Arizona all tied with two losses. Who ever goes 2-0 in this group wins the south. It will be a clusterf**k.
Everyone else just sucks. Maybe they don’t even go to a bowl game.

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