As June starts to roll into July, and July eventually leads us to the start of fall camps at the beginning of August, the 2023 college football season will be here before we know it. What a season it projects to be in the Pac-12 Conference, as well. With a handful of College Football Playoff contenders, and a group of Heisman Trophy candidates leading their prospective teams, we could be set up for one of the best football seasons out west that we’ve seen in decades. To help get us prepared, we at Ducks Wire wanted to go through each team in the conference and give a comprehensive breakdown of each school, breaking down their 2023 outlook. Welcome to our Pac-12 Previews. New editions will be published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday leading up to the start of fall camp.
Check out our previously published previews: Arizona Wildcats — Arizona State Sun Devils — California Golden Bears — Colorado Buffaloes — Oregon State Beavers — Stanford Cardinal — UCLA Bruins — USC Trojans
If you were to ask any semi-knowledgable fan of college football this offseason who the teams to focus on in the Pac-12 were, you’d likely get the same three answers: USC, Oregon, and Washington.
None of those teams are coming off back-to-back Pac-12 championship victories and a pair of Rose Bowl appearances in the last two years. None of those teams arguably have the best single coach in the conference.
The Utah Utes do, though. So why are we not talking about them more?
It’s not as if quarterback Cameron Rising took off for the NFL this offseason. Like Bo Nix and Michael Penix, he also chose to return for one last ride at this level and will look to go out on top. Sure, Rising is coming off of a knee injury, and it’s not a guarantee that he is 100% healthy by the first week of the season, but he’s still the dynamic gun-slinger that we’ve seen dominate the conference over the past two years.
Is there a world in which we see that dominance span three years? It’s incredibly possible. Here’s our full 2023 season breakdown of the Utah Utes.