Whittingham Has No Gripes With Utah's 2021 Conference Schedule

Over the past four seasons, the Pac-12 south division title has gone to either Utah or USC.

The Trojans appeared in the conference title game in 2017, taking down Stanford. Since then though, the Pac-12 north division has been on a three-winning streak as Utah fell to Washington and Oregon in 2018 and 2019 respectively before USC was taken down by the Ducks this past season.

Heading into the 2021 season, it appears that Utah and USC — the south's best options at breaking its recent skid — are once again on a collision course to see who gets the honor.

The south division title will run through the LA Coliseum this year as the Utes and Trojans are set to meet on Saturday, Oct. 9 in a game that should have some serious national implications.

Despite USC having home field advantage, Utah will enter with a more significant advantage.

The Utes will be playing coming of a bye week, giving them 14 days to prepare for one of their biggest showdowns of the season. Likewise the Trojans will be in Colorado facing the Buffaloes the week prior, a game that is sure to be no stranger to physicality.

“I would say yeah, not only for that reason but when you look at fall camp, and the season combined, week four is right about midway,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham told the Pac-12 Network when asked if the bye week is an advantage this season. “It’s not midway through the season, obviously but when you combine two-a-days, and the grind that it is gives them a nice break right about the midpoint. Then of course, it’s always great to have a little extra time to prepare for the Trojans.”

When the schedule was first released, Whittingham said it was nice that there were no surprises. The biggest things he noticed immediately were the two games on Friday night, the late-season game with Oregon and the location of the bye week.

“You always know who you’re going to play. You just don’t know in what order and, of course, what days. There’s a couple of non-Saturday games in there,” Whittingham said. “When you look at it, it’s pretty much laid out as we expected. We typically play USC early in the season — same thing this year. We’ve got Oregon late in the year at our place, which could be affected by weather. Of course, we always finish with Colorado at the end. So not a lot of surprises. It looks solid. We’ll see what happens.”

Utah is set to play nine games on Saturday — with the game at Oregon State a prime #Pac12AfterDark candidate — two on Friday and the season-opener against Weber State on a Thursday. Interestingly both Friday games come in the month of November.

“Six days of preparation rather than seven is not a huge deal,” Whittingham said of the Friday showdowns. “We’ve done that so many times. It doesn’t really bother us at all.”

One of the more interesting parts of the schedule is that the Utes will be hosting Washington State in its conference-opener, a rematch of the final game last season. The Utes were able to overcome a 28-7 halftime deficit to win 45-28 and finish above .500 on the shortened season.

UTAH'S 2021 SCHEDULE
*Week 1: Thursday, Sept. 2 vs. Weber State
*Week 2: Saturday, Sept. 11 @ BYU
*Week 3: Saturday, Sept. 18 @ San Diego State
*Week 4: Saturday, Sept. 25 vs. Washington State
*Week 5: BYE
*Week 6: Saturday, Oct. 9 @ USC
*Week 7: Saturday, Oct. 16 vs. Arizona State
*Week 8: Saturday, Oct. 23 @ Oregon State
*Week 9: Saturday, Oct. 30 vs. UCLA
*Week 10: Friday, Nov. 5 @ Stanford
*Week 11: Saturday, Nov. 13 @ Arizona
*Week 12: Saturday, Nov. 20 vs. Oregon
*Week 13: Friday, Nov. 26 vs. Colorado

IT'S HERE 🙌

The 2021 Utah Football Season Schedule pic.twitter.com/fOH9SXBW5k
— Utah Football (@Utah_Football) March 2, 2021

Be sure to like us on social media for future coverage: Twitter — @UtahUtes_SI and Ryan Kostecka at @Ryan_Kostecka