Utah: 7-5
North Dakota – W
@ BYU – L
San Jose State – W
@ Arizona – W
Bye
Stanford – L
@ USC – L
Arizona State – W
@ Oregon – L
UCLA – W
Washington State – W
@ Washington – L
Colorado – W
While I’m hopeful that Taylor is going to come in and fix all of our offensive problems, I’m not holding my breath. We have lost a ton of talent from last year and this schedule is as tough as we’ve ever had. If Taylor can work miracles with the offense right out of the gate, then maybe we pull out a couple of more wins. However, if his offense struggles then we’ll be lucky to make a bowl game.
Utah State: 3-9
@ Wisconsin – L
Idaho State – W
@ Wake Forest – L
@ San Jose State – L
BYU – L
Colorado State – W
Wyoming – L
@ UNLV – W
Boise State – L
@ New Mexico – L
Bye
Hawaii – L
@ Air Force – L
As the last of Gary’s recruits cycle through the program, the Aggies continue their fall back to perpetual doormats. The only question is, does Welles get another season after this one?
BYU: 11-2
Portland State – W
@ LSU – W
Utah – W
Wisconsin – L
Bye
@ Utah State – W
Boise State – W
@ Mississippi State – L
@ East Carolina – W
San Jose State – W
@ Fresno State – W
@ UNLV – W
UMass – W
@ Hawaii – W
I would love to be wrong here, but they essentially have 8 guaranteed wins this year. Utah and Boise State are rebuilding and I see LSU starting off slow with a bunch of new coaches. On top of that, I think the Tigers will take BYU too lightly and BYU is good enough to make you pay for doing that.
Oh boy…the responses to this should be fun. <grabs popcorn>
I’m curious why you have BYU doing so well.
They lost their best RB ever. They lost a QB that is in the NFL. Their new RB won’t be anywhere as good. Their QB was worse than Travis Wilson and Taysom Hill vs P5 schools.
Their WR’s have done nothing. Their TE’s have done nothing. Koroma is their best OL and he’s an very good run blocker. Pass protection? Forget about it. And their new QB isn’t the runner Taysom is.
They will be good defensively, but they lost their best two defenders to the NFL (Nacua and Langi) and they don’t have anyone to replace them that is anywhere near as good.
So, why BYU so good? What makes you think they can even beat us?
We had 6 TO’s, Joe was terrible, Troy was terrible and they couldn’t beat us.
A lot of BYU’s success comes down to their schedule. Like I said, they have 8 virtually guaranteed wins.
Mangum might not be able to run like Hill, but he is a much better passer. For him to throw for over 3,000 yards as a freshman return missionary is remarkable. He will make an NFL roster when his college career is over. I would take him as Utah’s QB in a hearbeat.
Canada is no Jamaal Williams, but he is no slouch either. I expect him to rush for well over 1000 yards and if he isn’t an NFL talent, he will at least make it in the CFL.
Their OL returns 4 out of 5 starters and I believe their entire 2nd string. They weren’t amazing last year, but I would expect them to be improved if for no other reason than that they have a lot of experience.
Their defense is really good and will continue to be so this year despite losing a couple of guys from last year.
Coaching and player execution should be improved as well since it is their second year.
Finally, they always seem to outperform Utah fan expectations. Each of the last few years, Utah fans say BYU is going to be lucky to win 6 or 7 games and BYU goes out and wins 8 or 9. This year, I’ve been hearing a lot of people predict they will win 8 or 9 games. Stands to reason they will outperform those predictions by 2 or 3 games yet once again.
I’m looking forward to facing Mangum. From what I’ve seen of him, he has a really bad habit of just heaving the ball up in the air and hoping his receivers can get to it. During his freshman year, if I recall correctly, he had a plethora of tall, athletic, receivers. I don’t know about their receiving corps now, but I doubt he’ll be able to rely on the deep throw as much as he did in ’15.
Plus, his stats his freshman year are drastically inflated by the fact they played really bad competition. When facing decent teams, he was mediocre to poor. He passed for a total of 55 yards against Michigan in a shut-out, 244 on 47 attempts against UCLA (5.2 y/a), 111 against Nebraska on 11 attempts, but almost half of that was on a last second HailMary. The only good yardage he had against a decent team was against Utah in the Vegas Bowl, and that he did after Utah had taken a 35-0 lead in Q1 and backed off for the next 3 quarters. He threw for 315 yards against us, but on 56 attempts (5.6 y/a). He also threw 3 interceptions (2 for TDs), had a fumble and was sacked 4 times.
I can’t wait to see Utah’s D against him this season. If he reverts back to heaving the ball up, then watch out, interceptions for everyone.
Granted, he may be much improved and I could be totally wrong. We’ll see in September.
Look at his numbers vs P5. Travis Wilson was a better QB vs P5.
Mangum is almost as over-rated as Heaps.
This sounds great until you consider that Mangum was a RM freshman and Wilson was a 4 year starter playing his senior season. Surely Mangum will be better as a junior than he was as a freshman.
ETA: Here is a comparison of their freshman season stats vs P5 teams. I omitted Wilson’s USC stats because he was only used as a change up in that game.
Wilson: In 7 P5 games – 120/194, 62%, 6 TD, 6 INT, 1213 yds, 173 ypg
Mangum: In 4 P5 games – 97/183, 53%, 5 TD, 4 INT, 969 yds, 242 ypg
Looks like Mangum is actually every bit as good as Wilson was, and even slightly better aside from completion % which might be explained by scheme differences where Utah seems to throw shorter more often while BYU was throwing longer more often.
BUT, it proves my point that both were pretty s**tty QB’s.
Mangum is at least 24 years old. He came into college with Jaemis Winston. He is what he is and he couldn’t beat out Hill who can’t throw, so…
i have the over/under on Mangum INT’s at six after his first three games.
Not really. Those are they types of numbers one would expect a freshman to put up vs P5 competition. It doesn’t mean they suck. Travis turned out to be okay, and I expect Mangum to play at least as well but most likely better.
Did Hill beat Mangum out though? How much of that last year was let taysom play because it’s a rebuild year and keep Mangum healthy because he’s the future of the program?
I’m not saying Mangum is great, but I don’t think we can count him out.
I would also ask, what promises were made to Hill in order to get him to come back?
If Hill had transfered, that would have left them with Mangum and a bunch of scrubs. Then, if Mangum goes down with an injury, they would have been screwed. Getting Hill to come back seems like it was an insurance policy of sorts. Ride Hill as far as he could take them and then let Mangum play out the rest of the season if/when Hill got hurt.
I have no doubt Hill was promised the starting job if he returned.
I fully agree they wanted to ride hill out. Promising him the job makes even more sense now that you say it.
Going to argue that byu doesn’t exceed Utah fan’s expectations, believe it’s more of the opponent underperforming from preseason expectations. Michigan State, Nebraska, Arizona, UCLA, etc all ended up being mediocre teams.
Secondly, I think your undervaluing some players a bit and overvaluing other positions. You say Canada isn’t Jamal Williams but he’s no slouch. Okay, but Jamal only rushed for 60yds vs Utah. Their o-line is average. Their defense without Nacua is average. Utah has fewer experienced players, but far more talented players from top to bottom. Even Scott Mitchell commented the same thing. Can BYU win, sure, but they’re not beating LSU, and Utah with the roster they have. 8 guaranteed wins is a bit much. Maybe 5.
For Utah, I’d go with this right now, knowing this can change after fall camp:
FCS – win
FBYU-P – win
G5 – win
Arizona – win
Stanford – ???
USC – loss
ASU – win
Oregon – loss
UCLA – loss
WSU – win
Washington – loss
Colorado – win
That’s either 7-5 or 8-4 depending on Stanford. I think we win 1 or 2 games vs Stanford, Oregon and UCLA.
I’d bet 7 wins. Feel really good about 8. 9…wow, what a great season, probably more impressive than 2008 or 2004 for the regular season. 10? Holy shoot, Taylor needs to be paid $1,000,000 a year.
I have Utah at 9-3 with wins against North Dakota, BYU, SJSt, AZ, ASU, Oregon, UCLA, WaSt, and CO and losses against Stanford, USC, and Washington. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them at 8-4 with a loss at Oregon (revenge game for the Ducks at Autzen). I would say a possible loss against WaSt, but I think by the end of the season we see the offense starting to run pretty well (though I think Huntley will likely be the QB by then), so a high octane offense plus KWhitt’s D will offset WaSt’s offense only game. Utah then goes on to either the Alamo or Holiday bowl for a top 20 matchup with the BigXII or Big10.
Utah St I have at 5-7, the only differences being I think they win against SJSt (they’re bad) and Wyoming (only because it’s in Logan). The other games I think you’re right on.
BYU, I have them at 8-4. I think LSU will beat them into the ground, then Utah goes in to LES and takes them to the whooping shed. Utah also has a week and a half to prepare, to BYU’s one week, plus they travel to Texas and back for the LSU game, plus the physical play they’re going to experience while they’re there. Then they get beat by WI, giving them 3 losses in a row, the fanbase will be ready to jump off a cliff, only to be met by a couple mediocre teams, MSSt (L on the road), and a bunch of easy wins. By the end of the season the fans will be calling for a bowl game vs Alabama and a Mangum heisman consideration.
People discount schedule too much. I said all summer that last year’s USC team would be the easiest game vs USC we may ever get. Alabama and Stanford before with a new QB (and yes, I called a new QB for us, anyone could see that happening).
If FBYU-P has an injury or two in the lines, they are screwed.
“Whooping shed” I feel is a little wishful thinking considering our of 6 straight wins only one was would classify as that. BYUs defense is extremely solid and it will Only be our 2nd game in our new offense.
We should pull the game out as I believe we will win in the trenches once again, but I doubt we win by more than a score. BYU has built a pretty solid team, especially with all the transfers, but I still feel we are the better team.
You need to explain your Utah, LSU, BSU and East Carolina picks. The Utes will beat them by at least two scores. It is essentially a home game for LSU. Boise and East Carolina are not pushovers.
LSU: They lost as much talent as Utah did to the NFL. Plus their best defensive player is likely going to miss the first game or two. And while Orgeron did well as the interim HC guiding the old staff, he has now replaced about half of their assistants. New coaches. New schemes. New starters. First game of the year for LSU. All signs point to a BYU upset.
Utah: We lost a ton of talent to graduation and the NFL. The game is in Provo. We have a new OC and we will be playing just our second game in his system.
Boise State: They lost their star RB and 3 OL who had been starters for 3 straight years. This combined with the game being in Provo and I give the nod to BYU.
East Carolina: Admittedly, I don’t know much about them other than they went 3-9 last year with two of their 3 wins coming against UConn(3-9) and Western Carolina(FCS). On top of that, their 9 losses were by an average margin of 26 ppg. Suffice to say, they suck.
So your theory is that none of these teams that lost talented players to the NFL have any ability to replace that talent with talented recruits?
LSU was ranked 4th and 8th the last two years in recruiting according to Rivals. They send guys to the NFL every year.
Utah’s OL this season is littered with 4 star players and we have a great OL coach. Our DL is probably as good as it ever has been. We know tds-P’s scheme, they do not know ours.
I just think you are over-exagerating the whole graduation/losing guys to the League thing.
No, that is not my theory. My theory is that these teams that lost talented players will be replacing them with players who have LESS EXPERIENCE. In college football, experience (or the lack thereof) can be the great equalizer. If BYU was playing LSU and Utah later in the season after their players have the chance to get their feet wet, I would probably pick LSU and Utah. But, the way things stand, I am picking BYU in both of those games.
I hope I am wrong, but fear I will be correct.
Less experience? Huh. Lowell, Fitts and Moko will be drafted. Anae played all last season.
DL is experienced.
We bring back our whole LB crew. Experienced.
CB – not experienced.
S – we may have the best safety in the nation in Hansen. Experienced as Ballard is a JR.
QB – experienced.
HB – we bring back almost all our guys. Experienced.
WR – we only lost one guy. Experienced.
OL – ok. We aren’t experienced here. But I’d take our inexperienced talent and Harding over BYU’s experience.
We lost a lot. But, we bring back a TON.
If we have any sort of offense, we win big.
Anae played in 6 games and had 4 total tackles and 2 sacks. I wouldn’t call that “all season” and with such a low number of tackles, I’m guessing he didn’t play very many snaps in those 6 games.
Ballard may be a junior, but he is a JC transfer who hasn’t played a snap for us yet. That is not experience.
According to Phil Steele, we return 4 offensive starters and 5 defensive starters. Granted, he probably isn’t taking into account Fitts returning or Moss and Shyne starting in Joe Williams absence, but we aren’t nearly as experienced as the picture you are trying to paint.
Phil Steele’s numbers are garbage. Our O line has 4 players that have seen playing time. Uhatafe has started or played since he got off his red shirt. Barton has a ton of experience and would have started last year until we got Bolles. Falemaka has two years of experience playing center and guard off and on. Darrin Paulo is going to be a beast. We just need to find a right tackle and it might be that Peck kid from Washington. He certainly has the size. I just think this team lacks experience on paper but really not. As far as Ballard goes, I saw him play in person twice and he is a fast Tevin Carter and he did alright. I have also heard that freshman Jaylon Johnson will start at CB he is that good.
I think we will go 8-4 with wins against: North Dakota, tds-P, SJSU, Arizona, Stanford, ASU, UCLA and Colorado. I would say WASU is a toss up and possibly Oregon with a new coach.
If you say his numbers are garbage, then I guess they are garbage. But . . .
Falemaka has the equivalent of 1, maybe 1.5 games playing on the line. Paulo has played ONE SNAP on the line. And who cares if Barton would have been the starter, the fact is, he WASN’T. Then you list off 3 guys who have ZERO experience at the D1 level.
If we are relying on a bunch of newcomers, which we are, then we are going to see some struggles. At least that is what history tells us. Maybe the talent will be so great that we don’t miss a beat, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
But your theory on experience assumes our opponents have not lost experience as well. Zoobs have to replace some very key elements on both sides of the ball this year. They have zero talent at running back and are very thin on the OL and WR. Their DL is decent but lacks depth. They have great LBs but their secondary, as always, is suspect especially losing Nacua. We beat them last year with 5 turnovers. That is unheard of. Why? Because we are simply better than they are. Our roster is now full of 3 and 4 star guys and their’s are 2 and 3 stars. Also they lost most of their super tall receivers to graduation and Mangum’s love for throwing jump balls will not work for him this year.
I just don’t see them beat LSU and us in their first two weeks. They do not have the speed to play with either team and it will show.
No, it doesn’t. My thinking factors in returning experience of opponents as I detailed in a response to someone else above. BYU’s roster is not as inexperienced or thin as you suggest. I mean, just look at your claim about their OL and RBs. They return 4 starters on the OL plus their entire 2nd string OL, IIRC. Then at RB they return two backups who averaged 4.3 and 5.3 ypc.
I hope I am wrong and you are right.
averaged 4.3 and 5.3 vs who? D2 programs? Stats are great untilyou look at the teams they faced. BYU barely beat Wyoming. I’ll take Utah with a senior QB over tds.
I was just going to post this, thank you. I don’t care how many yds the back ups got against SUU and Wagner or whoever. Against us it looks like the back ups got 1.0 ypc and -3.0 according to espn. Most of their rushing yds came from Taysom, who I guess you could say had some moves for a white guy. But Tanner can’t run to save his life, so idk who is going to make that difference for them.
I am very skeptical of tds on paper because of their patsy schedule, which admittedly is not their fault since they aren’t in a conference.
Anyway, I realize thunder has like 9 thumbs down but I appreciate the conversation.
Squally averaged 12.5 yds per GAME vs P5 teams. KJ Hall didn’t even have a carry vs P5 teams.
Keep in mind, they were backups so of course their stats aren’t going to be gaudy.
Canada rushed 9 times for 49 yards against Toledo(5.4 avg), 6 for 50 against Michigan State(8.3 avg), and 21 for 88 against Boise State(4.2 avg).
The bulk of Hall’s yards did come against SUU, UMass, and Utah State but those are the teams he got opportunities against.
Moss and Shyne put up good numbers against San Jose State but I’ll bet none of us were discounting their stats because it was just SJSU. In fact, I recall Ute fans (myself included) being geeked about how good those two were going to be based on how well they played in that game.
I don’t agree with you in any of this, but I have thouroughly enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
Except for the part where Moss and Shyne backed up their stats vs SJSU against just little old USC….
Except, I was only talking about their performance in the SJSU game and Ute fan reaction after THAT game alone. For all we know Hall would have backed up his performance against a P5 if given the chance.
http://www.cfbstats.com has a great breakdown on situational stats. FYI
You know, though I dislike this prediction bigly, I can at least applaud you for trying your best to give an honest assessment and not just a red goggles approach. Since Vegas has released odds for the tds game favoring them by 3 (is it still there?), their fans seem to have already decided the streak ends this year and are generally very overconfident.
I’m going with 8-4. I think Utah will lose to a team they probably shouldn’t, like one of the Arizona schools, but also beat a team they shouldn’t, like maybe UW.
I gave you a thumbs up solely because you used the word “bigly.”
I also have us at 8-4. Not sure why anyone would predict a loss to BYU. To me it’s a 50/50 game and Utah deserves the benefit of the doubt until BYU proves it can pull a game out against us. I don’t find the predictions unreasonable by any means, just that game.
I guess I’m a homer. If we win the games we “should” win I have 9-3. But we often lose 1-2 we shouldn’t. Realistically with our schedule I think 8-4 would be a very good season and 7-5 would not be a surprise
North Dakota WIN
byu WIN
San Jose State WIN
Arizona WIN
Stanford WIN
USC LOSS
ASU WIN
Oregon LOSS
UCLA WIN
Wash St WIN
Wash LOSS
Colorado WIN
Tony I’m with you, this is exactly how I see the schedule playing out. I think we could go anywhere from 6-6 to 9-3 with the games at Stanford, Oregon and Wash St being the swing games. We have a lot of talent to replace on the O line and installing a new offense will take some time. I can’t wait till game day and we get to see what we have for this season. I wish the BYU/San Jose State games were swapped, give us another week to prep for the cougars.
We’ll be ready for the zoobs. Coach always has us ready for that one.
I like this conversation. It’s nice to see some spirited football talk in the offseason. Thank you UteThunder for starting it! 45 Days left Ute Fans!!! 45 Days!!! We can make it!
Pac-12 Media days start in 9 days! When does fall camp start? That’s a couple weeks from now isn’t it?
We’re getting close! Can’t wait!
Not sure why you got so many thumbs down because it was your prediction and you do have some good points backing it up. Thanks for starting a great conversation on the board and GO UTES!!!
I mean, I had to thumbs down not because I dislike the messenger but I dislike the message. The thought of losing to tds makes me nauseous. Maybe we should advance plan a pity party for September 10th just in case?
I mean we could, but why should we comfort cougar fans for their inevitable loss?
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