Utah's revised season prospects. No such thing as BYU-flu?

This week's Utes article was going to be about the BYU-flu, and how Utah may have been looking past Utah State and had a BYU hangover at Arizona State.  The so-called BYU-flu may be real, and may have been suffered by other WAC/MWC teams, but it was rarely a problem for Utah.  As I look over the College Football Data Warehouse, I find that Utah usually wins the games before they play BYU and if there was a game after the Cougars, they usually won that as well.  Even in the during the forgettable Tom Lovatt era, was this the case.  The one bright spot during the Lovatt era was an upset win against Arizona State, the week before they played BYU.  Occasionally, one has to wonder, but most years the Utes have taken care of business before taking on BYU.  If there was a loss in the game before or after BYU, it was to a better team, as has been the case this year.

In the past 2 seasons, Utah is 0-2 in the games before BYU and 0-2 after.  But this is because they have played better teams, not because of BYU-flu.  Not even BYU fans are going to argue that BYU is better than Utah State and Arizona State this year...at least not this week.  Nor was last year's BYU team better than last year's USC or Washington.

But what about the rest of the year.  Are the Utes really as bad as they looked against Arizona State?  I would argue that Arizona State is that good, probably the best team that the Utes will play this year.  ASU is good enough to be smelling roses.  They are probably better than USC, as good as Stanford and on a good day could even beat Oregon.  If USU has made that field goal at Wisconsin, they could be this year's BCS busters.

USA today's computer ranking list Utah at a 74.96 which is 8th in the PAC-12. 

Here are Utah's remaining opponents from strongest to weakest.  Sagarin gives the home field 2.38 points.

USC  87.04  (Utah is 74.96 + 2.38=77.34 at home.)  This predicts a 10-point Utah loss.
@ UCLA  78.66  Predicts a 5-point Utah loss.
@ Oregon State  78.46  Predicts a 5-point Utah loss.
Arizona   76.86  Predicts a 1-point Utah win.
@  Washington  71.96  Predicts a 1-point Utah win.
California  72.67  Predicts a 5-point Utah win.
Washington State  61.16  Predicts a 16-point Utah win.
Colorado  54.19  Predicts a 18-point Utah win.

So the 2-2 Utes would finish with a 7-5 record if this prediction holds out.  Viva Las Vegas, I suppose, which would mean another shot at changing state history against Boise State.  (BSU has not lost to a team from Utah since moving up to the FBS.)

Games are not played on computer, however.  Utah was supposed to lose to BYU by a field goal, but pulled out a victory.  They get USC after their bye week.  UCLA and Oregon State may have been playing above themselves all season are are not really as strong as they look right now.  But on the other hand, watch out for Arizona, Washington and California.  So who knows.  They play the games for a reason.