Predictions:
USC- 24
Utah- 21
It seems right when I’m ready to bury Clay Helton and USC, they win 5 or 6 straight. While I certainly think Utah is more than capable of winning this game, I think USC benefits from the Freshman QB being back at home and has some fire in their belly after the BYU loss. I honestly think that had USC held on to win at BYU, they lose this game to Utah.
Washington- 27
BYU- 17
I think Washington is certainly beatable, and I also think BYU has the tools necessary to pull off the win, but my gut tells me to go with the better team who has one of the best coaches in the nation. Strangely enough, before the season started, the one thing I felt for sure about in regards to BYU was that Zach Wilson is awesome. 2 games in, I’ve flipped. I now feel like BYU’s team as a whole is more solid than I originally thought and that Zach has been kinda “meh”. He’s made a couple of timely plays, but he’s just looked “ok” overall. He’s still young, so obviously the jury’s still out and he’s probably suffering a bit from unrealistic expectations. I’m very interested to see how he progresses because I remember seeing Mangum as a Freshman and thinking “Wow, this kids gonna rewrite the BYU record books. And speaking from experience, Aaron Roderick doesn’t have the best record of developing college QB’s.
Also for the record, I hope both of my predictions are wrong. The USC game is a HUGE hurdle for Utah to clear should they win. After the first game of conference play, they’d basically be 2 games up on USC for the South and rising higher in the Top 10. As far as BYU, the better they are, the better Utah’s resume looks.