I thought I'd start this up after Jake Scott released his top 60 in 60 list. I'm going to start with the hypothetical "BYU shut down it's program, every single BYU player is trying to join the Utes and this is the final two deep".
I'll give in depth breakdowns of my decisions in the following months, but the list:
QB: Troy Williams, Tyler Huntley
RB: Shyne/Moss/Devontae Henry Cole
FB: Obsolete
X: Singleton, Trinnaman or Tyquez Hampton
Z: Siaosi Wilson, Samson Nacua
Slot: Simpkins, Dana
T: Barton, Capra, Peck
G: Agasiva, Uhatafe, Paulo
C: Falemaka, Koroma
TE: Fakailoatonga, Handley, Falemaka
So, on offense, you have Trinnaman and Koroma who would make the two deep, and even both of those would be fighting to make the two deep and after fall camp, it wouldn't surprise me if Hampton or Thompson bumped Trinnaman off that list and if Umana, Dixon or Grant bumped Koroma off that list.
Now, onto the defense:
DE: Anae, Hamilton/Tupai
DT: Mokofisi/Penisini
DT: Lotulelei/Fotu
DE: Fitts, Hart/Repp
LB: Luafatasaga/Barton
LB: Warner/Tauteoli
CB: Troy Smith/Tyreke Lewis
CB: Terell Burgess/Jaylon Johnson
NB: Julian Blackmon/Guidry
S: Chase Hansen/Blair
S: Ballard/Afia
Defensively, the only Cougar that would even see the field is Fred Warner. He is good, but he isn't near as good as Luafatasaga.
So, out of 44+ players, the only players with any hope of seeing the field are Fred Warner (and he would start, that's a given), Koroma (and that might not be true come this fall) and Trinnaman (but, again, he'd have to fight it out with a ton of players we have).
I did leave off Mangum, but did so for a reason. Vs P5 schools, look at his stats:
19/36, 53%, 193 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT passing.
6 rushes, -3 yards, 0 TD's rushing.
Hardly lighting the world up. In fact, vs P%, he sucks. When Hill and Wilson look better than you and can run, you aren't that good.
So, he wouldn't start over Troy Williams, especially a healthy Troy Williams.
The question becomes, do you take Mangum or Huntley. And that is a simple answer: Huntley. Throwing wise, he can't be much worse than Travis Wilson, Taysom Hill, or Tanner Mangum. But, what he can do with his legs is fantastic. If he can cut down on his mental mistakes and TO's, he might push Troy for the starting job this fall.
This doesn't mean that Mangum sucks (although he isn't that good), but it does mean that Utah is jut better.
This game won't be close.
Last year, we had 6 TO's. One fumble forced by Kai Nacua and another forced by Harvey Langi. Those two are in the NFL now. BYU does not have two players anywhere near that level at those positions. Ah You may develop into a player at that level, but in his third college football game? Forgettaboutit.
We had two INT's thrown by Troy Williams. They were terrible throws. BUT, in JC both those throws are TD's. Those are inexperience throws. And Troy Williams wasn't making those throws by the end of the year. They aren't happening again.
The third INT was a terrible call by the refs. The was a helmet to helmet hit and it should have negated the INT and Utah should have received the ball back. The refs 100% got that call wrong. That won't happen again (well, the targeting of Utah players will happen again, but the odds of such a terrible, blatantly wrong call is slim to none).
Even with all that, BYU still lost. They don't have the players they had last year. Utah has more players than they had last year. The only spot where Utah takes a step back compared to where they were vs BYU last year is LT with Garrett Bolles.
I get that they lost Marcus Williams, but Chase Hansen is a baller and Ballard is very good as well. Hansen may be better than Williams and Ballard isn't as good, but he isn't far behind.