Hollywood, Calif. • Not surprisingly, Utah is an overwhelming pick to repeat as the Pac-12 South football champion. The bigger news is the Utes are the conference’s overall favorites.
That’s partly explained by Oregon’s splitting votes with Washington, as the Ducks narrowly became the North’s choice by a 35-member media panel. Even so, it is quite a distinction for the Utes, who only last season became the final member of the Pac-12 South to win a division title and then lost to Washington in the conference title game.
In the South balloting, published Wednesday morning to start the Pac-12 Football Media Day, Utah received 33 first-place votes to second-place USC's two votes.