Ute Football schedule

[cjd1]

2021 schedule in text form, for easy: pic.twitter.com/tFFyX0YotY

— Josh Furlong (@JFurKSL) March 2, 2021

[UrbanLiar]

Since Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego is closed, and Aztec Stadium isn’t completed until 2022, the Aztecs will be playing 2021 games at Dignity Health Sports Park way up north in Carson. Keep this in mind if (please, please, please) we’re at a point regular fans can attend the game.

[Ghost of the HEB]

I don’t have much hope for CA

I just hope the conference doesn’t force Utah to severely limit attendance even tho local restrictions will likely be lifted

[Charlie]

Not great, I was planning on going to San Diego for the game.  I wonder what the ticket situation will be in a 27,000 seat stadium?

[utefansince79]

Is that what used to be called the Home Depot Center (where LA Galaxy play)

 

[Central Coast Ute]

Yes it is where the Galaxy play and where the Chargers played before SOFI was completed. I attended one game there and it wasn’t bad. All bench seating but that have backs so it’s not as bad as the stadium seating in the Rose Bowl.

[UteBrook]

Well, SDSU had 21,000 average attendance in San Diego in 2018, so it is likely the Carson stadium will hold 27,000 Ute fans as SDSU fans aren’t much into attending at home let alone travel 2.5 hours to see them.

[Jake]

Can’t believe we’re scheduling games AT San Diego State

[2008 National Champ]

can’t give this enough thumbs up.

[Hellhound152]

Can’t believe that Texas A&M, UCLA, Pitt, and UNC scheduled games in SLC back in the MWC days.  Get over yourself, winnable game in a recruiting hotbed, nothing to see here.

[Yergensen]

Two consecutive G5 games on the road? This makes sense for a couple extra days of recruiting CA?  

[Central Coast Ute]

Playing games at G5 schools in Cali, Texas and Florida is not just ok do to, it’s wise to do. The head scratchers were NIU and Wyoming.

[Hellhound152]

NIU was coming off multiple top 25 finishes and was considered one of the best G5 programs in the country at the time we scheduled them.  Wyoming has also been trending toward the top of the MWC since Bohl was hired.  I don’t have problems with either series.  As alluded to above, BCS teams played these series with the Utes back in the day and there is no reason for us not to do it now.  If Texas, Mizzou, and Nebraska can go to Laramie so can the Utes.

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Nope.  We don’t recruit the Chicagoland area very hard, so if we DO opt to play there, then it needs to be vs. Northwestern.  I’d be okay with that.  However, there’s NO excuse for scheduling a MAC team.  If we need a warm up game, there’s plenty of MWC teams we could play, and plenty of C-USA teams in TX and FL.

No MAC!

[MDUte]

^^this 100%!

[Hellhound152]

You pretend like those luxaries existed when the series was made.  At that time Utah was just looking for decent non-conference wins and hoping to win enough in conference to make mid tier bowls…

[Central Coast Ute]

I haven’t seen any evidence that Chris Hill was trying to schedule good non-con games outside of Michigan.

[UteThunder]

Hill did schedule Bayor, and I believe Arkansas was his scheduling deal as well.

[Central Coast Ute]

Ok you got me. Although Arkansas wasn’t finalized until Harlan came in if I remember correctly. I guess it’s possible that Hill got the ball rolling.

[UteThunder]

Yeah, I can’t remember the timeline on Arkansas, that one might’ve been Harlan’s. In any event, I don’t think Hill was scheduling soft completely on his own. I think Whit had asked for a balanced schedule due to the difficulty of 9 Pac-12 games + the intensity of the BYU game. I honestly believe that if Hill wasn’t being forced to schedule BYU, then he would have scheduled a P5 opponent every single year, assuming Whit would sign off on it.

[Central Coast Ute]

You’re right, the BYU thing does throw a wrench in the scheduling. And we all know it isn’t the AD’s fault that the U has to schedule them.

[MDUte]

Yes I remember listening to Hill on an interview explain the scheduling philosophy used during the period of time that Utah was making the transition to the Pac 12 (1st 5 years)….A,B,C game formula for OOC. He explained that BYU was the A game, then scheduling winnable G5 for B game, and FCS win for C game. Given the difficulty of the 9 game conf schedule plus playing the rivarly game, Hill worried about not over-scheduling and making it really difficult to get bowl eligible. When the Michigan H-H opportunity came up, Hill jumped on it but dumped BYU in order to still maintain the A,B,C game approach. Then either the last year of Hill’s tenure or the 2nd to last (can’t remember) he acknowledged that Kyle had successfully built the roster depth and program to a level that they were looking at moving to an A,A-/B+,C formula where we’d schedule both a P5 program as the A game and BYU as an A-/B+ game and then schedule a win with the C game. 

I agree that the “soft” scheduling in the early days of us being P5 always involved Whit’s input and approval. And I’m sure the current more aggressive approach still involves Whit’s input and approval. 

[Dresden_Stormblessed]

Serious question: What’s it going to take to never play the Y again? There is no benefit to us anymore. I’m personally just over this rivalry.

I’d rather the following: top one hundred team, top 30 team, and a top ten team. I’d rather go into the season with a loss from a top ten team for us to learn from than beating yet another mediocre-at-best team. Preferably all three games are in recruiting hotspots for us: Texas, Florida, and California.

[2008 National Champ]

It would probably take a huge majority of administrators, including the U President, to decide that the game no longer matters and be willing to absorb the backlash. The yearly football game has no advantage for Utah and if we are going to play an in-state FBS school, I’d much rather see Utah State get that game.

The reality of the situation is that the yearly football game doesn’t really register in the priorities of the Admin and they tend to look at the response from the local community which has been largely in favor of continuing. Not to mention the pressure that was put on the school by the State Legislature when there was talk of discontinuing the series a few years ago.

As much as I would love to see the series stop, I don’t see it happening short of something catastrophic which I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. So I tend to take the tact of having it reclassified as G5 equivalent instead of P5. There are a lot of other schools in FBS who play an OOC “rivalry” game while still scheduling other P5 opponents. The parochial school, other G5, FCS just doesn’t move the needle when it comes to national perception and Utah has gotten to the point where that matters.

[MDUte]

Totally agree! As long as BYU remains a mid-major, which I don’t see them ever moving up to P5 (their arrogance blew their only real chance back in 2011), it really does us no good playing them every year. The game is their Super Bowl whereas we are expected to win. And if we were ever to lose to them, it becomes an embarrassing loss on our record. Even looking at it from the instate recruiting angle, the top recruits will generally pick Utah over the Y anyway because of our P5 status which offers kids something meaningful to play for every year, let alone a pathway to playing on Sundays for top talented kids. And the longer BYUs experiment goes with Independence, the further they sink into irrelevance playing a schedule of meaningless exhibition games.

[GameForAnyFuss]

Serious question: What’s it going to take to never play the Y again?

First of all, I am not intending this as a political statement. But the answer is, we have to change the composition of our legislature. If you are voting for legislators who have ties to BYU-Provo Campus, there’s a good chance that they are very provincial thinkers who will insist that the game continue. That’s what makes them willing to defund our hospital (yes, that threat really was made) over a football game.

[Charlie]

Actually, road games in Cali are great for travel and great for recruiting.  Of the three nonconference games, one should be on the road to get used to it before league play.  Can’t think of a better place for that than in San Diego.  Game was scheduled before the construction decision.  Still, a place that allows the utes to visit their hottest recruiting base.

[Author]

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