Mailbag Question of the Week

Well, I've been asked to put on my little predictor's cap again.  Question comes as follows, from a long-time and very loyal reader: what does the Pac 12 future hold for Utah?

There is a lot of buzz around this question in the state of Utah for sure.  Utah fans feel they will go in and instantly compete for the Rose Bowl.  BYU fans feel most years that Utah doesn't compete for the MWC crown anyway and will be lucky to make a bowl game in the Pac 12.

The answer is: probably somewhere in between, but it certainly depends.  Here are a few things it depends on: how do the divisions split?  That is important for scheduling.  How far will USC fall with its NCAA penalties (or, in my opinion a more pertinent question: how far will they fall with Lane Kiffin at the helm)?  Determines how likely Utah is to beat them.  What approach will Utah take with its nonconference schedule?  If they decide to schedule 3 patsies, they are already halfway to a bowl game.  Next year, however, they are scheduled: Iowa State, at Boise State, at Pittsburgh.  How many home games vs. road games will they have?  For all of the talk of Utah's dominance against the Pac 10 teams, Kyle Whittingham is 0-3 on the road, with 2 blowout losses.  He is 3-0 at home, eking out 2 of those by 3 points.  He is 1-0 at neutral sites, with a 10-point win, though it wasn't really that close.

I'll tell you one thing: there is not a single team that Utah could not beat in the Pac 12.  Followed immediately by: there is not a single team that Utah couldn't lose to either.  Kyle Whittingham's Utah teams get up for the big game, no doubt about it.  Since Kyle took over, Utah is the only MWC team to win a BCS game.  Utah is the only MWC team with a winning record against TCU.  Besides TCU, Utah is the only MWC team to beat BYU twice (TCU has done it 3 times).  However, Utah has also lost to every team in the MWC, including two losses to New Mexico.  There are some pretty bad teams in there to be losing to: CSU and UNLV, in the years that Utah lost to them, would have easily been the worst teams in the Pac 10.

Simply put, Utah's motto is: get up for the big game, play down for the little one.  To win the Pac 10, you have to follow up a win against Oregon, Oregon State, or USC with a win against Arizona State or Washington State.  I'll think most years they'll manage a winning record in the Pac 12, depending on the schedule, but, week in and week out, they cannot get up.  This is not to mention the upward trajectory of some of the programs meaning MORE big games: Washington, Stanford, and Arizona are all on the rise.

Next year, 2011, first year in the Pac 12, with 4 homes games and 5 road games, they probably go 3-1 at home and 2-3 on the road for a 5-4 record.  If they get 5 home games and 4 road games they might get up to 6-3.  Obviously it depends on which 9 teams they play and where they play them, but since I can't predict that, I just have to predict how they'll do.  They will lose at least one game at home and probably have a losing record on the road.  Assuming they beat Iowa State and get bowl eligible, they probably get a Las Vegas Bowl bid against the loser of the BYU-Boise State game (with the winner going to a BCS game).