Washington at Utah Preview

This week Utah plays their first home Pac-12 game. Washington leads the all-time series, but every game has been at Washington and they haven't played since 1979. Utah is coming off a bye week and Whittingham is 6-0 after regular season byes. Utah has won the last 10 after regular season byes, going back to 2002.

It's hard to really gauge where Washington is. Their defense has given up a ton of yards through the air, but they've also played Eastern Washington, Hawaii, and Cal who all love to throw the ball. In fact, Eastern Washington and Hawaii don't do much besides throw the ball. Utah has struggled at times to throw the ball, so they'll want to get that going early to spread out the Washington defense. Their rush defense is ranked 48th, giving up 125.8 YPG, despite playing Eastern Washington and Hawaii, who don't really run the ball. They gave up 309 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns to the 8th ranked rush offense, Nebraska.

Utah should be able to run the ball with John White, who is ranked 9th in rushing (126.7 YPG). He also has 5 rushing touchdowns through just 3 games. In order to make the run game more effective, QB Jordan Wynn will have to spread the ball around to get the UW defense to spread out over the field. He'll also need to throw the ball downfield. He has shown sparks of a great QB at times and has thrown the ball downfield, he'll just need to continue to improve. I think he'll be quite a bit improved after the week off. The good thing about Wynn is that he has played mostly mistake free, only throwing 1 interception which was on a tipped pass. There have been a couple other passes that could have been intercepted, though. Still, he's looking like a smart, mature quarterback who just needs his shoulder to get stronger.

Utah has the 13th ranked rush defense, allowing just 79.33 yards per game on the ground. In their last game, they held BYU to 11 rushing yards, had 2 sacks, and forced 7 turnovers. Of course, they won't be able to have that same performance against UW RB Chris Polk and QB Keith Price, but they should be able to hold their own against a pretty good offense. They've let up a lot of yards through the air, partly because of BYU, but they rank 33rd in pass efficiency defense (114.7 QB rating). Keith Price ranks 9 in pass efficiency (176.6 QB rating), so something's got to give. I think he'll throw the ball well on Utah at first, but Utah will eventually slow the run and be able to get after Price to get him out of his element.

I expect there to be quite a few points scored in this game. For Utah to win, they'll need to play solid defensively and slow down Polk, then get after Price. For Washington to win, they'll need to spread the ball around and score a lot of points. If this gets high scoring, Utah could be in trouble, especially if Washington's defense forces a couple interceptions.

My pick is Utah 28, Washington 24.