Utah has two losses on the record, but don’t tell that to the analytics crowd. In this week’s SP+ rankings from ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Utes came in at No. 6 overall, the highest-rated two-loss team in the country, and sitting ahead of several undefeated or one-loss programs.
That might surprise people who are just following scores and standings. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone who’s actually watched Utah this year. The Utes play a complete brand of football. They’re physical, they tackle well, and they don’t give away possessions. Even in their losses, they’ve looked like a team that can hang with just about anyone.
SP+ is a predictive model built on efficiency, explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives. It’s not about a resume, it’s about how a team performs snap to snap. And right now, Utah is performing at a top-tier level even if its record isn’t spotless.
The Big 12 should take note. Utah might be the new guy in the league, but they’re playing like a program that’s already figured it out. These rankings don’t give you wins, but they do tell you who’s built to sustain success. And Utah’s numbers show a team that’s not fluking its way through the season. They’ve got structure and stability, and they’re still in the mix.
Of course, sitting at No. 6 in a metric like this doesn’t mean anything if you drop another game. The margin for error is gone. Two losses don’t kill your season if the rest of the body of work holds up, but three will do it. So the pressure stays on, and Utah knows it.
But what this ranking really shows is that Utah’s two losses aren’t being treated like disqualifiers. They lost to good teams, and even in those games, they didn’t look outmatched. That matters in a system like SP+, and it should matter when evaluating who’s actually good in college football, not just who’s undefeated.
Utah’s not getting talked about the way top-10 teams usually are, but the metrics see them. And if they finish strong, that number might end up being a preview of where they land, not just a nice number on a spreadsheet.
