The Pac-12 titans were fed their hats in Week 1 of the 2022 college football season. But Pac-12 football analyst Ryan Leaf isn’t ready to write off one of those losers just yet.
Appearing on SiriusXM, Leaf argued that despite losing to Florida, Utah could still wind up being in the conversation for the College Football Playoff so long as they don’t lose again. He pointed out that the Florida game was the toughest on their schedule and they can still dominate the rest of the season.
“If Utah handles their business I could still see a one-loss Utah still being in the conversation for the College Football Playoff,” Leaf said. “They play as good as they could to ultimately not win the game. This team is still very very talented and very good.”
Leaf stopped short of predicting that the Utes would accomplish that though. But they do have the benefit of being the current betting favorite in all of their remaining games.
Utah would have to overcome a lot of hurdles to reach the College Football Playoff though. They would have to finish the regular season at 11-1 and then win the Pac-12 Championship, preferably against a ranked team.
The Utes came close to doing exactly that in 2019, but lost to Oregon and were axed from College Football Playoff contention as a result.
In his 17 years as head coach of Utah, Kyle Whittingham has only won 11 regular season games twice – and only one of those two times has come while the Utes were members of the Pac-12.
All of that is to say that Utah has a ton of work to do if they want to end the Pac-12’s College Football Playoff drought.