Utah Just Outside of The Athletic's Top 10 Teams Heading into the Season

With the official AP preseason rankings now released, some publications are taking their rankings a bit further, placing all 134 college teams into their "rightful" spot based on the pundit's own criteria. The Athletic's Chris Vannini has undertaken the task of ranking all 134 teams and even strayed a bit from the official placements in the preseason top 25.

In order, Vannini's top 25 has Ohio State taking the #1 spot followed by Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Michigan, Florida State, Mizzou, Utah, Penn State, LSU, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Clemson, Miami, Iowa, Iowa State, K-State, Kansas, OK-State, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and Arizona.

Utah placed 11th on The Athletic's rankings, moving up one spot from 12th place on the AP Preseason 25.

"Utah looks like the Big 12 favorite with quarterback Cam Rising and tight end Brant Kuithe back, along with most of its really good defense," Vannini said.

With a little over a week to go until the Utes' 2024 campaign kicks off against Southern Utah University on August 29th, the Utah hype train has yet to slow down and the team will look to make good and even surpass the expectations placed upon them throughout the offseason.