Utah football is the preseason favorite to win the Pac-12 South. We go through the Utah Utes schedule to make picks for every game.

Winning the offseason was far from the Utah Utes’ primary goal, but winners of the offseason they were, nonetheless.

Coming off a season in which it finished 9-5 and made its first Pac-12 Championship appearance, Utah is everybody’s favorite dark horse entering the 2019 season: currently, ESPN and Bleacher Report have identified the Utes as potential “sleepers” when it comes to the CFP conversation, and more recently, at the Pac-12’s media days, they were voted as favorites to win the conference. Add it all up, and for maybe the first time, the Utes are a significant part of college football’s hype machine—for better or worse.

All of this seems unthinkable to fans of a certain age, and yet, here we are. At long last, Utah is finally the kind of program head coach, Kyle Whittingham, has chased for the last 14 years: a contender. The evolution, from 2005 to present, has now come full circle.

But Whittingham, for his part, has downplayed the noise, saying only: “We’re focused on winning a Pac-12 championship. I think that’s everybody’s goal in the Pac-12. … ‘What are we gonna do to make that happen?’”

On that, only time can tell.

For now, here are game-by-game predictions for Utah’s 2019 season.