Jon Joseph from Georgetown, Texas in his analysis of the PAC-12 for FishDuck.com, an Oregon football analysis website, writes that a couple of things have to happen to fix the PAC-12 conference. First, the PAC-12 Network needs to be sold to ESPN. As Jon writes, “A sale to ESPN immediately gets the Pac-12 Network on DirecTV and every other significant cable channel that televises college sports . . . and ESPN would not be left behind when it comes to streaming capability.” Secondly, when Clay Helton finally fizzles out this year, as Jon and others expect he will, USC needs to hire Urban Meyer. You know that guy that I told you last year wouldn’t stay retired no matter how many times he says he will. Jon feels that Urban’s chops at coaching and recruiting specifically will not only solve USC’s problems on the field but will lift the conference overall.
Well, if that second thing were to happen it won’t be Urban’s first venture coaching at a PAC-12 school as he was the head coach at Utah in 2003 and 2004 back when the Utes were still part of the Mountain West Conference. In his first year at Utah Meyer was named both Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year as well as The Sporting News National Coach of the Year. In his second year he led Utah to its first undefeated season since 1930, won the Mountain West Conference, and captured a BCS bid beating Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl.
So what does any of this have to do with this year’s Utah team that is slightly favored to edge out the likes of Oregon and Washington for the PAC-12 Conference title? Here’s what. Utah’s current head coach, Kyle Whittingham, was Urban Meyers Defensive Coordinator for the two years he coached Utah before moving on to the Florida Gators. As a matter of fact Whittingham had just finished his 10th year coaching the defense for the Utes when Urban left for greener pastures. Whittingham was moved up into the head coaching position and has been there ever since, starting his 16th season this year. He has the most wins of any active PAC-12 coach but has yet to win the conference championship.
Utah went into last season with high hopes as well and although they won their first two non-conference games, stumbled early in conference loosing their next two games to both Washington schools. But they ultimately recovered and moved one step closer, appearing in the PAC-12 Conference Championship Game for the first time in a loosing effort to the Washington Huskies. This year they are hoping to take that next step forward by not only making it to the party but taking home the prize and there’s good reason to believe that it could happen.
With Utah only having the 7th best recruiting class in the PAC-12 this year and 42nd nationally it’s fortunate that they only had 9 total senior starters in 2018. The Utes have plenty of folks coming back on both sides of the ball including four key players who could have jumped to the NFL. Limping into the 2018 Conference Championship Game due to injury to both their starting QB Tyler Huntley and RB Zach Moss, Utah should be running on all cylinders right out of the gate this year. Andy Ludwig returns to the program as Offensive Coordinator which will most likely open up the offense leading to less pocket play by Huntley in addition to Zach Moss becoming Utah’s all time leading rusher. You’ll probably be seeing Britain Covey on the other end of many of those Tyler Huntley passes. The Utes have a terrific front four, including two guys who could have moved on to the NFL along with the other six who did make the move. If/when they loose it will most likely be to teams who beat them in the air.
Utah starts their season off on the road in Provo against BYU on Thursday, August 29th at 7:15pm PST on ESPN. They’ll return home to take on the NIU Huskies and Idaho State Bengals. After that they’ll start conference play facing USC on the road in what should be a very intense match-up at the LA Coliseum with both sides having something to prove.