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PREDICTIONS!!! Who doesn’t love diving into a bunch of predictions from people outside of the program/state? I know I do, and Athlon is always one I keep an eye on with their predictions. This year, they are very optimistic about the Utes, here’s what they tweeted out earlier today:
Going game-by-game predicting how Utah's schedule will unfold in 2018 https://t.co/Me32O35p8W pic.twitter.com/GFgL9Fgw31
— Athlon Sports (@AthlonSports) August 8, 2018
So the predictions for these guys range from 8-4 to 10-2 (Bryan Fischer has always been a Utah believer). Fischer has Utah losing to UW and Oregon, which isn’t too far of a reach. I’m still not sold on Oregon, as I continue to repeat myself on that one. That Washington game in week three could be a major tone setter for the rest of the season. UW is a top-5/10 by many people, and the run away pick for the Pac-12 title. Fischer does say in the piece that this is a window for Utah to win the division, which is hard to argue, with as much change as there has been in the league.
I find it interesting that Steve Lassan has Utah beating UW by losing to ASU. Obviously, the Pac-12 is unpredictable, but I don’t see Utah beating UW and losing to ASU. But Lassan is counting on the usual Pac-12 upset to happen. I feel like if Utah beats UW, really only Stanford, USC and maybe Oregon could knock them off at that point. I think highly of UW, as everybody else does.
We’ll dive more into our predictions in the next couple of weeks, but it’s always fun to see what others are saying about the Utes, and it seems like expections are as high as they’ve been for the program. Head over to Athlon to see the full article.