SALT LAKE CITY — When the University of Utah hosts No. 21 Arizona State on Saturday night, here is what will be at stake.
Pencils down. Eyes up front, class.
Ready?
Everything.
Everything will be at stake when the reigning Big 12 champion visits Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Furthermore, these Utes (4-1, 1-1 Big 12) potentially have everything to lose.
That statement is not hyperbolic, and it’s easy to see why.
At this admittedly-early juncture of the Big 12 schedule, Utah has one conference loss, a 34-10 decision against Texas Tech, in which the Red Raiders held the Utes at arm’s length for three quarters, then stepped on the gas in the fourth quarter.
Another conference defeat would not officially eliminate Utah from getting to the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 6, but the possibilities would become extremely limited.
Yes, last season’s Big 12 championship game participants had to be sorted out among four teams sitting at 7-2, but the point stands.
A loss on Saturday, and what remains possible this fall turns into a different conversation.
What about perception? Is that something that matters to you?
Utah’s four wins have come against UCLA — which looked like the worst Power Four team in the country until it upset Penn State last weekend — FCS Cal Poly, Wyoming, and West Virginia.
The one loss on Utah’s resume came against arguably the best team it will play this season.
If the Utes want to be taken seriously, if they want to be playing meaningful football deeper into October, then into November, and potentially into December, they’re going to have to start by beating someone in their own weight class.
Beating All-Big 12 quarterback Sam Leavitt (who is now listed as “doubtful” for the game), Biletnikoff Award candidate Jordyn Tyson, and the Sun Devils would qualify.
Remember when Rice-Eccles used to be a house of horrors for visiting teams?
From the start of the 2018 season, up until a one-sided loss to No. 8 Oregon on Oct. 28, 2023, Utah had won 18 straight at the vaunted 51,000-seat venue.
Over that span, the Utes were 30-2 at home — the two losses being in 2018 to Washington, which wound up in the Rose Bowl, and in 2020 against USC, which was the COVID-impacted season-opener after the Utes were decimated by positive tests and contact tracing.
As a member of the Big 12, Utah is 0-5 in conference games at Rice-Eccles, including three games that kicked off at 7:30 p.m. or later.
If Rice-Eccles is still a place nobody wants to play, if fans still want to believe that night kickoffs and the raucous atmospheres that come with them, are still a true advantage, then Utah needs to win this game.
Being 0-6 at home, including 0-4 at night, would be a tough place to argue from.
Then, well, there’s this other thing, still way off in the distance, but it will start coming into focus if Utah were to lose to Arizona State.
If the Utes take on a second conference loss, and the season begins to take on a different tone, and the Big 12 title game becomes less of a possibility, and getting to the 12-team College Football Playoff becomes nearly impossible, does Kyle Whittingham start heading toward the proverbial door?
Remember, however you choose to view it, Whittingham is in the deep winter of his coaching career. He opted to return this season after saying at Big 12 media days that he “couldn’t stomach going out on that (2024) season.”
“My decision will be made on what’s best for the program, not what’s best for me,” Whittingham said in November. “So it’ll be completely determined on how I feel this program is best served going forward. And so, yeah, that’s where that is.”
It will be interesting to revisit that quote come December.
Per the terms of his latest contract amendment, depending on whether Utah qualifies for the Big 12 title game, Whittingham’s retirement decision must be made by Dec. 5, which is the eve of the game, or Dec. 12.
Whittingham’s contract runs through 2027, but he has indicated publicly he doesn’t believe he will still be coaching in 2027.
This is where we are. For all intents and purposes, Utah’s season is on the line Saturday night, but it’s so much more than that.
It’s this season, it’s the perception of this particular team, it’s the perception of its home field, it’s the possibility of the program’s face potentially calling it a career.
All of it is at stake, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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