Twelve games on the calendar. Fans in the stands. Consistent rosters, hopefully. Standard practices. College football as we know it is back! Can I get a “ki-yi?!”
As for the precious, delicate models my predictions are based on, however, we are still a good ways away from 'as we know it'. COVID created some tremendous challenges to predictive analytics, leading to a year of data hardly worth the bytes to store. Add that to big structural changes in the way the market allocates talent between teams and we have a recipe for an uncertain, chaotic year. In that uncertainty lies opportunity, for Utah at least.
COVID 19 and changes to NCAA rules created a much richer transfer environment than in prior years, with players having an easier time transferring and much more likely to be eligible immediately. Utah has traditionally excelled at attracting more seasoned talent, often securing impact JuCo and grad transfers to shore up holes in the roster. The coaches hit the transfer portal hard and hit paydirt multiple times.
A quick look at the roster spells a dire situation for Utah's offense thanks to graduation, transfers, and the tragic loss of Ty Jordan:
Once you think about Utah's transfer talent additions, however, the analysis changes. Utah added a tremendous set of talented football players, and although it doesn't really work this way if we add their 2020 production (pro-rated per game for five games) directly to Utah's total stats we have a very different picture for Utah's offense:
Utah did more with the transfer portal than just about anyone, and as a result their offensive production has a whole lot of upside. Whether that will translate into a top-3 conference offense to go along with their top-3 conference defense remains to be seen, but all that upside puts Utah in a position to contend for the conference crown.
Advanced metrics are reasonably favorable to Utah, figuring out to a prediction that they will win against Weber State by about 25-30 points. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's about a touchdown shy of the performance Las Vegas is predicting this week, with the spread at -35.5 as of Tuesday afternoon.
Vegas is free to adjust their evaluation based on transfer talent, but right now FPI and S&P+ don't, and neither does my model. That's probably because transfers haven't transformed a team's prospects in a consistent way that justified rebuilding the models to account for them. If Utah does wipe the floor with Weber State to the tune of 35 points, it's the first sign that changes to the transfer portal might have shifted the power dynamics of college football.
Utah 42, Weber State 10