Ranking Utah football's 2026 road games from toughest to easiest

The Utes have five road games next season, all against Big 12 opponents

Utah Utes head coach Morgan Scalley will lead his team through a 12-game schedule consisting of five home games and seven road matchups. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

All things considered, Utah got a nice draw regarding its Big 12 schedule for the 2026 season.

Yes, not scheduling the Holy War for last week of the regular season was a missed opportunity for the league. But outside of that quirk, the Utes came away with only one game in the Eastern Standard Time Zone (at Cincinnati, Oct. 31), no trips to cold-weather cities in November and just two road games overall before Halloween.

Playing eight straight regular season games after the only bye week on the calendar could prove to be challenging, though Utah handled seven consecutive following its October bye pretty well last season. Despite some injuries, the Utes lost just once during that stretch en route to the Las Vegas Bowl, where they handled Nebraska to finish the 2025 campaign with an 11-2 record.

When lookin ahead to 2026, it's only natural to scope out the toughest stretches and most important games on the Utes' slate. So, let's take a look at Utah's road games as we rank each of them from toughest to easiest.

1. TCU (Nov. 21)

TCU Horned Frogs head coach Sonny Dykes. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Utah's trip to Fort Worth, Texas, in late November figures to be the Utes' toughest game away from home in 2026, largely because of where it falls on the calendar, the Horned Frogs' success inside Amon G. Carter Stadium and the expectations placed upon TCU heading into next season.

The Nov. 21 matchup will be Utah's seventh-straight game since its Oct. 3 bye, as well as its third road game in as many weeks. It's no secret the war on attrition typically lends itself to more injuries and absences from key players in the final month of the regular season, so the Utes will definitely hope that some of the health luck they had in 2025 carries over into Morgan Scalley's first year as head coach. Of course, no team goes a whole season unscathed.

The Horned Frogs — ranked No. 20 in ESPN's way-too-early top 25 — could be in a similar boat considering their date with the Utes will mark their sixth consecutive game since their bye week on Oct. 10. However, only two of those games will have been outside of Forth Worth. Given TCU is 19-6 in home games under Dykes (6-2 in November), the Utah game will be part of an opportunistic stretch for the Horned Frogs to build up their résumé before facing Texas Tech in their regular season finale on Nov. 28.

2. Arizona (Nov. 14)

Arizona Wildcats head coach Brent Brennan. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Perhaps the only thing that keeps this game from being considered as Utah's toughest road game is the fact the weather in Tuscon, Arizona, is typically around 60 degrees and dry in late autumn (Fort Worth isn't much worse but has greater potential for precipitation in November). Otherwise, the Nov. 14 matchup with the Wildcats at Casino Del Sol Stadium looks like it'll be one of Utah's toughest road games of the season.

For starters, head coach Brent Brennan has Arizona trending in the right direction following a five-win improvement from his first to second season at the helm, resulting in the Wildcats' best record in over a decade (9-4, 6-3 Big 12). With All-Big 12 first team selection, Noah Fifita, back under center and offensive coordinator Seth Doege in the booth calling plays, Arizona retains two key components of an offense that ranked No. 3 in the Big 12 in scoring (31.5 points per game) and No. 6 in total yards (407.6 per game). Defensively, the Wildcats looked to remain stout under coordinator Danny Gonzales after ranking No. 2 in the league in yards (308.5) and No. 4 scoring (19.3 points allowed per game).

Arizona will have a slight edge in the rest department when it hosts Utah, with it being the Wildcats' fourth straight game and the Utes' sixth in a row. Utah has won three of the last four meetings in Tuscon. It'll be worth monitoring how the physical matchup with BYU the week prior has the Utes feeling when the take on the Wildcats.

3. Cincinnati (Oct. 31)

Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Scott Satterfield. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Fun fact: the Utes have never played the Bearcats in Cincinnati before. That means next season's Halloween matchup between the two at Nippert Stadium — where it'll likely be around 50 degrees and potentially raining — will be the first in the head-to-head series to be held in the state of Ohio.

What does that mean for the game itself? Probably not much. In fact, looking back at last season's meeting in Salt Lake City hardly indicates much about the Bearcats' make-up in 2026, considering their top four receivers and starting quarterback have either graduated or hit the transfer portal since then. The same goes for the Utes: Creed Whittemore is the only returning player who caught a pass from Devon Dampier during that 45-14 drubbing at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

As such, both teams spent resources acquiring wide receiver depth in the portal. Cincinnati's biggest addition was Kent State transfer Cade Wolford (19 receptions, 509 yards and seven touchdowns in 2025). The Utes landed a four-star talent at the position as well in Utah State transfer Braden Pegan (60 catches, 926 yards and five touchdowns).

Both sides will have had roughly the same amount of rest for the Oct. 31 game, with it being Cincinnati's third game removed from its bye and Utah playing in its fourth straight. The Bearcats take on Texas Tech the week prior, while Utah comes off a home game against Houston and has a showdown with BYU set for the following weekend.

4. Colorado (Oct. 17)

Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

This one feels like a crisp-air, blue-sky kind of game that kicks off around noon local time from Folsom Field, making for ideal conditions for a rare mid-October matchup between Utah and Colorado.

How rare is it that the Utes and Buffaloes are playing in Boulder before November? Well, the last time that happened, Harry Truman was president of the free world and Joe DiMaggio had just become the first professional baseball player to sign a $100,000-per-year contract.

Times have changed considerably since 1949; so much so, in fact, that the annual salary of a hall-of-fame center fielder for the New York Yankees wouldn't have gotten the Buffaloes anywhere near the negotiating table with their prized transfer portal acquisitions. Especially not when it came to landing four-star transfers DeAndre Moore Jr. (No. 6-ranked wide receiver in the portal), Liona Lefau (No. 7 linebacker) and Boo Carter (No. 4 safety).

Time will tell of Deion Sanders' portal class — ranked No. 23 nationally by 247Sports — turns the Buffaloes around in the right direction following a 3-9 campaign in 2025. Colorado plays three of its first four games away from home to start the 2026 season, then hosts Texas Tech the week prior to its bye on Oct. 3.

One would think that a week off would give a team the ideal time to get rested and prepare for its next opponent. Under Sanders, that hasn't been the case for Colorado, which is 1-4 coming off a bye since Sanders' first season in 2023. One of those losses was a 53-7 beatdown courtesy of the Utes.

5. Iowa State (Sept. 27)

First-year Iowa State Cyclones head coach Jimmy Rogers. | Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

This one doesn't even deserve to be No. 5 on the list; it's just unclear what the Cyclones will look like under first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers, formerly the Washington State head coach who filled the void Matt Campbell created when he left for Penn State in December.

Campbell, who spent the previous 10 seasons at the helm of the Cyclones, took nearly two dozen of his players with him to State College, Pennsylvania, leaving Rogers very little to work with as he tries to fill the shoe's of the winningest head coach in school history. That also means Iowa State will look completely different on both sides of the ball in comparison to last season's 8-4 squad.

As such, it's hard to say how Utah's trip to Ames, Iowa, will play out. It's clear, though, that of all the weeks the Big 12 could've picked for this game, landing on late September as opposed to November, when its usually below 40 degrees around those parts, was the best-case scenario for the Utes.