Utes Net Top 10 Spot In ‘Dr. Saturday’ Pre-Season Rankings

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The numbers love Utah Football in 2019.  Matt Hinton, formerly known as Dr. Saturday on Yahoo! to millions of college football fans, put out his yearly pre-season 1-130 projections for the 2019 college football season.

Using a variety of stats from recent history, recruiting, and on-field production, the Utah Utes check-in at No. 10 heading into the 2019 season.

Check out Hinton’s full rankings below.

Here's all 130. BASELINE=overall strength, based on a combination of five broad categories (History, Recruiting/Talent, Experience, Projected Offensive/Defensive Production). That number's then applied to schedules to get the final ranking. pic.twitter.com/7S1H5llafU

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) August 6, 2019

The Utes are projected by Hinton to win 10 games in 2019.  USC and Washington were considered toss-ups and Hinton has the Utes falling to Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game.

This is just one of many projections that rank the Utes as one of the top teams in College Football this fall. Highlighted of course by the pre-season nod last month at Pac-12 Media Day calling for the Utes to win the entire conference this season.

BYU

BYU which heads into year four under head coach Kalani Sitake checked in at No. 49 on Hinton’s rankings.  What stands out the most from these projections for the Cougars is that BYU isn’t favored to win a game until November when they travel on the road to face in-state foe Utah State.

Projected losses against Utah, Tennessee, and Washington, with toss-ups against USC, Toledo, South Florida, Boise State, and San Diego State.

Utah State

The Aggies were surprisingly lower on these rankings than many outlets are calling for in year one of the returns of Gary Andersen to the Cache Valley.  Utah State appears at No. 77 in Hinton’s rankings.

Utah State is favored to win in games against Stony Brook, Colorado State, Nevada, Wyoming, and New Mexico.  That’s a total of five wins with projected losses coming against Wake Forest, San Diego State, LSU, BYU, and Boise State.  Toss-ups include games against Air Force and Fresno State.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.