It is time to continue our college football odds series with a Utah-Houston prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Utah-Houston.
The Utah Utes did not expect to be in this position. Utah just lost to Arizona State and TCU in consecutive weeks to fall completely out of the Big 12 title race. Utah entered the 2024 season as the Big 12 favorite. Hopes were high in Salt Lake City that the school which won the Pac-12 championship in both 2021 and 2022 would be able to come to a new conference and establish itself as the big dog, especially with Oklahoma and Texas moving out to the SEC.
It has not worked out that way. The reason Utah was the Big 12 favorite was that veteran quarterback Cam Rising — who won the Pac-12 in those two earlier seasons for the Utes — has not been healthy. Rising battled health problems last year but resolved to come back this year. With their proven quarterback on the field, the Utes had reason to think they could rise back to the top of college football. Without a healthy Rising, however, their aspirations have vanished. They just don’t have the resources or talent on offense without Rising in good health. The offense has labored the whole season, and the margin for error in each game is noticeably small. The season lies in ruins for the Utes, who did not have a backup quarterback good enough to pick up the slack once Rising went down…