Utah’s first loss of the football season caused the Utes to fall nine spots in the AP Top 25 rankings and receive a “pretender” rating from the AP’s national college football writer.
The Utes (3-1) dropped to No. 19 in the AP poll after enjoying the program’s earliest-ever Top 10 ranking for one week. Utah was the highest-ranked Pac-12 team for three weeks, but now is below three Pac-12 North schools: Oregon (No. 13), California (No. 15) and Washington (No. 17). Utah also is No. 19 in the Coaches Poll.
AP writer Ralph D. Russo observed of the Utes’ 30-23 loss Friday at USC, “Speaking of pretenders, No.