It’s November now in the final football season for the Conference of (real NCAA) Champions, and on Pac-12 Friday, we’re moving to the Top 3 all-time schools. This may seem “unfair” to place the Utah Utes so high, but they’ve been a very good addition to the conference over the last dozen seasons. With a .578 win percentage in league play, Utah also has earned 9 bowl bids, 6 Top 25 finishes, and 2 conference championships. Shiny!

5. 2018

A 9-3 regular season helped the Utes to the Pac-12 South Division title, but then Utah lost the conference title game to Washington and the Holiday Bowl to Northwestern, finishing the year on a downslide. However, the Utes did beat in-state rival BYU while finishing No. 24 overall in the SRS rankings. Utah fielded the No. 17 defense nationally and beat then-No. 14 Stanford on the road by 19 points as well.

4. 2015

Utah ended up No. 17 in the Associated Press poll, based on a 10-3 record playing against the No. 26 SOS. This amounted to a No. 20 overall SRS ranking, too. The. Utes posted a 42-point road win at then-No. 13 Oregon and followed it up with a home win over then-No. 23 California the next week. In an interesting bowl matchup, Utah beat BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl to conclude a very successful season for the Utes.

3. 2021

With a 10-4 record after a thrilling 48-45 Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State, the Utes finished No. 12 in the AP poll. They also finished No. 12 in the SRS rankings overall, thanks to the No. 14 offense in the nation. Unranked as late as November 13, Utah finished with two wins over ranked Ducks teams by a combined 59 points to win the conference championship for the first time ever. Two early losses kept the Utes from more.

2. 2022

A second-straight league championship earned Utah another Rose Bowl bid—although maybe it should have been in the CFP. The Utes lost the Rose to Penn State, but they still finished 10-4 again with the No. 10 AP poll ranking—same as the SRS ranking overall, again. The No. 11 offense guided the team to two victories over ranked USC teams, including in the Pac-12 title game. Three road losses, though, hurt Utah.

1. 2019

Oddly, this is not the team we would have guessed to top the list: a 22-point loss in the Pac-12 Championship to the Ducks was followed by an uninspired 38-10 loss in the Alamo Bowl to unranked Texas. Utah, which peaked at No. 6 in the polls before the Oregon loss, ended up 11-3 and ranked 16th overall (and No. 14 in the SRS). The only regular-season loss on was on the road to USC by just 7 points. So close to more.