Games like the upcoming tilt against Arizona don't tend to make the history books. One of these teams has the edge at every position, in every facet, on the field and in the coaching booth. That is reflected in statistical metrics and, spoiler alert, the charts and graphs below show Utah almost certain to come away with a win.
So in a world where winning is all but certain, how do you measure success? Working against point spreads is a great way to start. Vegas sets a point spread, but almost all advanced metrics boil down to 'points better/worse than average' and a football fan can set their expectations using any of them.
Utah's FPI is 12.6, and their SP+ is 14.6. Put another way, after crunching all the numbers these metrics project that the Utes will beat an average football team on a neutral field by 12-13 points or 14-15 points. Of course, Arizona is far from an average football team. FPI has them as 10.9 points below average, and SP+ 11.4.
Measure the difference between those two numbers and add three points for home field advantage and you've got yourself a point spread. FPI would predict Utah by 20.5, while SP+ has Utah by 23. Neither quite matches Vegas for optimism, where the consensus line is about -24. That's because while our advanced metrics see all plays equally, Vegas is watching Tavion Thomas and Cam Rising emerge and thinking they are going to pick up a few more points than you might expect. That's a pretty safe bet.
Vegas is pretty good at what they do, and what they do is set lines to get even money on both sides. Usually that means getting the number exactly right, but at these massive spreads, that starts to break down. Competitive spreads, between -1.5 and -14, see the favorite winning 49.79% of the time. Once the spreads get big the favorite starts to cover noticeably more often, 51.76%.
The margins of these blowouts feel random, and many bettors have the same sensation Ute fans do when they see 'Utah -24', saying to themselves "well sure, the Utes are better... but winning by 24 is a LOT" and then tend to bet for Arizona to cover. To compensate for this, Vegas sets the line a little lower than they think the score will be.
I'm not Vegas, and I don't have to worry about what people think. Utah is likely to cover that -24 spread, with a ground pounding offense Arizona can't stop that will force Arizona to rely on their worst offensive weapon: the pass. With so many inaccurate passes flying all over the field, there will be a lot of opportunities for Utah to get extra possessions and push the scoring margin to the stratosphere.
Utah 40, Arizona 13
