Will the Utes make a bowl game? Here’s what ESPN’s FPI predicts

After losing four in a row, its latest loss coming at the hands of a Houston team that entered the game scoring the fewest points per game in the nation, Utah is in a bad place.
For the third time in four games, the Utes failed to score more than 14 points, and in a pretty surprising move, benched true freshman quarterback Isaac Wilson midway through the third quarter for Brandon Rose.
Aside from a 71-yard screen pass to Brant Kuithe on the second play of the game and a Micah Bernard 14-yard touchdown run, not much was working for the offense — from quarterback play to offensive line play to wide receiver play to running back play.
Special teams turned in a dud of a game — Cole Becker missed field goals from 46 and 52 yards that could have been the difference and punter Jack Bouwmeester didn’t have a good game with seven punts for 288 yards.
Utah did hold Houston to only 17 points — a little over three points more than the Cougars’ worst-in-the-country 13.7 point average entering the game — but the defense had their issues as well.
To be fair, Houston only dropped back to pass 17 times, but the inability for the Utes to sack Cougar quarterback Zeon Chriss against an Houston offensive line that had allowed 24 sacks this season was head-scratching, even with the Utes down two starters — Junior Tafuna and Keanu Tanuvasa — on the defensive line.
Yet again, the Utes had another game with double-digit missed tackles (16) and poor run defense (Houston rushed for 228 yards and passed for just 61).
These are season-long issues plaguing the Utes, but after four consecutive weeks of the same old story, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that they’ll ever get fixed this season.
But the players and coaching staff will keep trying.
“You can only go one way. You can only go one way,” running back Micah Bernard said.
“…We keep going to try to get a win. You got to keep going, try to get a win. We got to figure something out and we have to put, like I’ve been saying, the Ws in the win column. That’s only the only way we can go. Nobody’s going to fall off. Nobody’s going to quit on the team. We love football. We just got to love winning more.”
After losing their two most winnable games on the Big 12 schedule to TCU and Houston, Utah is 4-4 and just 1-4 in Big 12 play.
The four-game losing streak is the longest for the program since 2017. In that season, Utah won two of its next four games to notch six wins and earn a bowl bid, defeating West Virginia in the Heart of Dallas Bowl — the Utes’ last bowl win.
Can the Utes replicate that to end the 2024 season?
It’s going to be extremely tough.
TCU and Houston was the “soft” part of Utah’s remaining schedule, and what follows is four challenging games in which the Utes will be underdogs in.
After a bye week this week, it starts with the rivalry game against undefeated No. 9 BYU, which also enters the contest off of a bye.
Quarterback Jake Retzlaff has the Cougars’ offense humming to the tune of 35.1 points per game, running back LJ Martin is back in the lineup, and Darius Lassiter and Chase Roberts have been excellent receiving options in Aaron Roderick’s offense.
Defensive coordinator Jay Hill has engineered a 180 from BYU’s defensive performance a season ago. The Cougars are allowing only 19.6 points per game and have generated 18 turnovers — tied for fourth-best in the nation.
Weird things happen in rivalry games, and the contest is at Rice-Eccles Stadium, but after watching the Utes over the last four games, there would have to be a complete turnaround for Utah to pull off the upset against a BYU squad that’s starting to look like a team of destiny.
ESPN’s Football Power Index matchup predictor currently gives the Utes a 39.8% chance of winning the rivalry matchup.
From there, Utah heads to Boulder to face No. 23 Colorado, which entered the AP Top 25 after beating Cincinnati to become bowl eligible.
Deion Sanders’ program keeps trending in the right direction, led by quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2,591 yards and 21 touchdowns) and two-way player Travis Hunter (757 receiving yards and eight touchdowns; 20 tackles, seven pass breakups, two interceptions).
Unlike previous years, the matchup against Colorado is going to be anything but a walk in the park, especially on the road against a charged-up crowd. FPI gives Utah just a 26.3% chance to win.
Next up is a visit from No. 11 Iowa State, the other undefeated team from the Big 12. This was always going to be one of the harder games on the schedule for the Utes, and after the offensive display of the last four weeks, it’s going to be hard for Utah to score on the Cyclones.
Iowa State is No. 9 in scoring defense (14.4 points per game) and No. 18 in yards allowed per game (304). For a Utah team that struggled against middling defenses from TCU and Houston, beating the Cyclones seems like a monumental task. Sure, Iowa State is vulnerable against the run, giving up 170 yards per game, but have the second-best passing defense in the nation, which allows only 133.7 yards per contest.
We already know the formula the Cyclones will use — stack the box to slow down the run and force Utah to beat them through the air. The Utes haven’t found an answer to that defensive game plan yet.
FPI gives Utah a 35.3% chance to win against Iowa State at home.
Utah flies across the country to Orlando on a short week to wrap up the 2024 regular season and it could be a huge game for the Utes’ bowl chances if they win one of the previous three games.
UCF, which is 3-5 and 1-4 in conference play, is — on paper — the most winnable game in the closing stretch for the Utes. The Knights have had a quarterback carousel, going to fourth-string signal-caller Dylan Rizk in the fourth quarter against BYU, and haven’t found a winning formula on offense or defense despite RJ Harvey being one of the best running backs in the country.
The Knights are on a five-game skid, but Utah has lost to worse teams than UCF this year. FPI gives the Utes a 35.8% chance to win the season finale.
Sports aren’t played on paper, of course, and Utah could find a way to steal two games and become bowl eligible if everything goes right and the Utes find solutions to the issues that they’ve faced all season. After what the team has shown over the last four games, though, the more realistic scenario is that the Utes win just one, or none, of the contests down the stretch.
It’s already been a bad season for the Utes, but if Utah does not make a bowl game, it’ll be one of the most disappointing seasons in program history — one that could possibly see the Utes go from Big 12 title favorite to sitting at home in the postseason.