Utah Underrated? Athlon Sports thinks so

[Wilson’s Mustache]

The Utes finished 10-3 a season ago, including a win against Michigan — 2016 offseason darling. They return their entire starting offensive line and both starting cornerbacks. Another reason to like Utah is experince — the Utes are very upperclassmen-heavy on both sides of the ball. They also have finished in the Top 25 of either the AP or Coaches Poll in five of the last six years. If Alabama and Clemson get the benefit of the doubt based on recent history, I don’t understand why Utah would not.

Full Article Here – Athlon Sports

[Tacoma Ute]

They got one thing wrong. There’s no way we finished in the Top 25 5 of the last 6 years because we went 5-7 two of those years. Otherwise a nice write up though.

[Anonymous]

Hey dont stop them now they are on a roll. Tell me more about the NY6 bowls instead of the Vegas darlings.

[Matthew Thomas Castleton]

We also didn’t finished ranked in our first Pac-12 season (2011). Though we did finish 8-5 and won the Sun Bowl, we weren’t anywhere close to being ranked at the end of the season. Athlon doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about here. The Utes did finish 23rd in the Coaches’ Poll after 2010 though (lost to Boise State in the Las Vegas Bowl). We have finished ranked at the end of the year in both of the last two seasons (#16/17 last year, #21/22 in 2014). We also finished ranked #18 in both polls after the 2009 season and #2/#4 after the 2008 season. The actual facts say that we have finished ranked in 5 of the last 8 seasons, not 5 of the last 6 as they claim (not ranked only after 2011 (8-5), 2012 (5-7), and 2013 (5-7)). Pretty good considering the fact that we changed conferences and dealt with a lot of QB turnover during that period.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Matthew Thomas Castleton.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Matthew Thomas Castleton.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Matthew Thomas Castleton.

[KiYi-Ute]

I think we play better when we feel we have something to prove and have a chip on our shoulder. Looking forward to this season. I’ll go on record as saying we win the South.

[Anonymous]

Given that JC Transfer Garrett Bolles is listed as starter on the OL, we did not return our entire OL.

How’s that after a bottle of Cabernet?

[Matthew Thomas Castleton]

Garrett Bolles was also a five-star recruit according to scout.com.

[Wilson’s Mustache]

Ya know what……forget you guys and all your fancy facts. I like the article better my way anyhow

[Anonymous]

Might as well start talking about the Heisman hopeful Booker and Wilson with his Qbr the highest in the nation.

[UteStuckInSeattle]

I can understand the nation not really giving Utah more respect. We had the eyes of the college football nation squarely on us last season and we faltered when it mattered most.

It was a decent season but we didn’t do what we needed to do to warrant the hype we had around us the first part of the season.

The product on the field is where it matters and if we want the respect then we’ll need to earn it there.

I think we will do just that this year.

[KiYi-Ute]

Agreed. The entire country watched us get mollywhopped by USC last year. I think we were certainly over ranked. The win at Oregon wasn’t a fluke; but I think we can all agree that the Oregon we beat wasn’t the Oregon we’ve come to know over the past 4-5 years.

Utah has to earn, and more importantly, maintain respect for multiple seasons before we can expect any sort of preseason love. We’re not a perennial contender program but we do have the ability to be respected around the country, in time.

Just win, baby.