At least one prominent college football observer is predicting that the No. 9-ranked Utah Utes will lose to the unranked Washington Huskies on Saturday.
In his latest weekly column predicting some of the top games around the country, The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel wrote Thursday that the Huskies will win 27-24 in Seattle.
“Since losing 30-23 at USC back on Sept. 20, Utah has allowed a combined 23 points in four lopsided Pac-12 victories. However, none of the last three opponents, Oregon State, Arizona State and Cal, had a quarterback who could challenge the Utes’ DBs like Washington’s Jacob Eason,” Mandel wrote. “I smell Top 10 upset.”
Some good news for Utah is that Mandel also predicted the No. 7-ranked Oregon Ducks will beat the unranked USC Trojans 38-30, which would allow the Utes to keep pace with the Trojans in the Pac-12 South.
Mandel’s colleague at The Athletic, Bruce Feldman, also predicted in his weekly column that Oregon will beat USC.
Since he’ll be one of the commentators on Fox for the Utah-Washington game, he did not make a prediction for that contest.