{"id":40063,"date":"2025-07-05T06:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T06:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40063\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T06:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T06:17:09","slug":"this-bowl-projection-has-a-utah-school-winning-the-big-12-making-the-cfp-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/40063\/","title":{"rendered":"This bowl projection has a Utah school winning the Big 12, making the CFP \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">One year after BYU beat a ranked opponent in a bowl game and finished in the top 15 in the final rankings while Utah was home for the holidays with a 5-7 record, the two schools are going into the 2025 season with expectations to make the postseason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It was the Utes, though, who earned the more favorable prediction in a way-too-early bowl projection that came out to kick off July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/news\/college-football-bowl-projections-full-list-of-matchups-playoff-predictions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">On3\u2019s Brett McMurphy released his bowl projections<\/a> earlier this week, including his best guess at who will make \u2014 and win \u2014 the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/UHKGP77IT5E3JLPDLCGEIU5ZBI.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Special Collector&#8217;s Issue: &#8220;1984: The Year BYU was Second to None&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football&#8217;s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">What did he predict for BYU, Utah, Utah State and the Big 12?<\/p>\n<p>What is BYU\u2019s projection in On3\u2019s mid-summer bowl projections?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Cougars played in the Alamo Bowl last season, beating Colorado 36-14.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This year, though, McMurphy is projecting a lower-profile matchup for BYU against Jacksonville State in the Independence Bowl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Cougars played in the Independence Bowl in 2021, losing to UAB 31-28.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BYU has never faced Jacksonville State before. The Gamecocks joined the FBS in 2023 after nearly three decades playing at the FCS level.<\/p>\n<p>What is Utah\u2019s projection in On3\u2019s mid-summer bowl projections?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">McMurphy projects that Utah will win the Big 12 and earn an automatic bid into the College Football Playoff as the No. 11 seed in the first year of the straight seeding model.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">McMurphy predicts the Utes will face No. 6 seed Clemson on the road in the first round and lose to the Tigers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Utah and Clemson have never played in football.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Utah is the only Big 12 representative in McMurphy\u2019s CFP projections. He has Georgia beating Ohio State in the national championship game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">While Utah has never played in the CFP, the Utes have previously played in two New Year\u2019s Six bowl games, playing in back-to-back Rose Bowls in the 2021 and 2022 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Is Utah State projected for a bowl game?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">McMurphy doesn\u2019t have the Aggies reaching the postseason in their first year under coach Bronco Mendenhall, the former BYU head coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Utah State missed the postseason last year after playing in a bowl game in 11 of the previous 13 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Which Big 12 teams are projected to make the postseason?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">McMurphy predicted that 12 of the 16 Big 12 teams will qualify for a bowl game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Last season, nine Big 12 teams played in the postseason. The league went 4-5 collectively.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>College Football Playoff, first round \u2014 Utah vs. Clemson.<\/li>\n<li>Cure Bowl \u2014 UCF vs. USF.<\/li>\n<li>Rate Bowl \u2014 TCU vs. Minnesota.<\/li>\n<li>Pop-Tarts Bowl \u2014 Texas Tech vs. Louisville.<\/li>\n<li>Texas Bowl \u2014 Iowa State vs. Oklahoma.<\/li>\n<li>Birmingham Bowl \u2014 Oklahoma State vs. Missouri.<\/li>\n<li>Independence Bowl \u2014 BYU vs. Jacksonville State.<\/li>\n<li>Alamo Bowl \u2014 Kansas State vs. USC.<\/li>\n<li>Sun Bowl \u2014 Colorado vs. Florida State.<\/li>\n<li>Armed Forces Bowl \u2014 Kansas vs. Army.<\/li>\n<li>Liberty Bowl \u2014 Baylor vs. South Carolina.<\/li>\n<li>Holiday Bowl \u2014 Arizona State vs. SMU.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Arizona State, last year\u2019s Big 12 winner, is projected for the Holiday Bowl, while a couple other expected conference contenders, Texas Tech and Kansas State, are predicted to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl and Alamo Bowl, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Only three of the 12 Big 12 teams projected to make the postseason in McMurphy\u2019s predictions wouldn\u2019t face a fellow power conference team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year after BYU beat a ranked opponent in a bowl game and finished in the top 15&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,1680,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-40063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114799171913924385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}