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Ahhhh, the good old ESPN FPI is back at hating on Utah again. ESPN’s system has never like the Utes, and that appears to be the case going into 2018, where Utah will have to prove it wrong. The system has Utah having a 2.5% of winning the Pac-12, and I say bring it on.
Updated (8/25) Probability of Winning 2018 Pac-12 Title per ESPN FPI
— SportsPac12 (@SportsPac12) August 25, 2018
1. Washington, 53.6%
2. USC, 21.3%
3. Stanford, 11.6%
4. Oregon, 3.6%
5. Arizona, 3.0%
6. Cal, 2.7%
7. Utah, 2.5%
8. UCLA, 1.1%
9. ASU, 0.4%
10. WSU, 0.1%
11. Colorado, 0.0%
OSU 0.0%
I think it makes sense that Washington is the leader, that’s a no brainer, but the fact that USC and Stanford are that far ahead of the rest of the field is crazy to me. USC is rebuilding their offense, and Stanford has plenty of warts that makes me scratch my head a bit. I mean Bryce Love is a stud, but I don’t know if he can drag them to a conference title. The shocking thing to me, most of all, is that CAL has a better chance per ESPN FPI than Utah. Yeah, the Cal Bears who missed a bowl game last season. Now, it’s possible that the metric is factoring Utah’s schedule, and if so that makes a bit more sense, but I don’t think Utah should be behind Cal, Arizona and Oregon, but the program will have to prove everyone wrong. Again.