Utah’s Pac-12 Season Is On The Line Against Arizona State

Utah’s Pac-12 season is essentially on the line tomorrow afternoon against Arizona State.

Notice I did not say their entire season is on the line. They aren’t locked into a worthless bowl already like their rival to the South. There would still be plenty of good football left even if they were to lose.

However, if Utah wants to make any noise in this, their first Pac-12 season, they need a win tomorrow afternoon, plain and simple. And they’re going to have to do it with a totally untested quarterback.

Arizona State has proven to be the best team in the Pac-12 South thus far. They are 2-0 in-conference and have already knocked of USC. Utah is 0-2 in-conference and a loss to ASU would put them 3 games back with 6 to go; an almost impossible deficit for Utah to overcome.

So, does Utah have a chance? We have no idea what to make of the quarterback situation. However, Utah still has offensive weapons at receiver and I trust they will get their running game back on track this week.

As for the defense, don’t read too much into them getting run over in the 2nd half last week against Washington. They just ran out of gas because they were on the field too long and got no help from the offense.

Finally, it’s pretty safe to say Utah is not going to turn the ball over 5 times again this week!

Should Utah pull off a win, they’ll be right back in this thing. Fans will be buzzing and Rice Eccles will probably be sold out the remainder of the year. It will really be a lot of fun the rest of the way.

Should they play hard and lose a close one, it could be a bit rough going forward. Utah goes on the road against Pitt and Cal the next two weeks. Suppose they go 1-1 in those games. That puts them at 3-4 on the year coming home to play a bad Oregon State team as the weather is getting colder in late October. I’m not so sure some of the Pac-12 luster won’t have worn off by then. I hope I’m wrong.

ASU is favored by 3.5 tomorrow. If Coaches Whittingham and Chow can get anything out of quarterback, Jon Hays, they should have a shot. Look for it to be a great atmosphere again tomorrow up on the hill and for the Utes to respond.