Utah's Meeting With Arizona Deemed A Game With College Football Playoff Implications In 2024
The college football landscape shifted in a major way this past year thanks to conference realignment.
Texas and Oklahoma are joining the SEC, the Big 12 added four Pac-12 programs headlined by Utah, the ACC added two others, and the Big Ten added four as well. The Pac-12 as a conference technically still exists through Oregon State and Washington State, but the conference that was well over 100 years old will forever be different after it eventually is backloaded with Mountain West programs.
With all of the movement in and around college football, people also forget that the College Football Playoff is shifting to 12 teams instead of four. The expansion of the playoff allows for the top-seeded conference winners to get in automatically, which means a program like Utah with two conference titles in the past few seasons with no playoff appearances to show for it, would have a chance to compete for a title.
Heading into the 2024 season, Utah is widely viewed as the favorite to win the Big 12, and is projected by some to be a top-five team in the country. However, with all of the movement around the country, there are a handful of games that can directly impact the playoff even with the automatic and at-large bids. For a conference like the Big 12 or ACC, there is no guarantee that a team will get if they don't win the conference title with the Big Ten and SEC being viewed as the two premier conferences.
So, it makes total sense that ESPN's Heather Dinich tabbed Utah's matchup against fellow top team in the Big 12, Arizona, as one of the 12 games that has playoff implications.
Utah vs. Arizona
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Dinich explained that both teams won't have the strength of schedule to get in as an at-large, and also detailed that they'll each have a prime opportunity to take over as the face of the conference. Here's Dinich's breakdown:
Both teams will have a difficult time earning an at-large bid because the selection committee will call their schedule strength into question. Winning the Big 12 will be critical to their playoff hopes. Without Texas and Oklahoma in the way, Arizona and Utah have an opportunity to immediately assert themselves as leaders in their new league. The question is if Arizona can continue its upward trend without Fisch, who was hired at Washington. The answer could come quickly, as Arizona is at K-State on Sept. 14. If Arizona loses at Utah, K-State might be its only regular-season win against a ranked opponent. That would be extremely damaging to Arizona's playoff hopes -- even as an at-large -- if it doesn't win the Big 12. The same applies to Utah, which needs the committee to rank Big 12 opponents to boost its résumé.
Despite their coaching change the Wildcats, like the Utes, are returning a huge chunk of their key players in 2024. Big 12 fans will however have to wait until the end of January to find out when their favorite team plays, and when this conference-deciding matchup will occur.
