If you want to get into the playoffs - then you need to schedule up.

It's true that you don't know how good your conference will be - and it's also true that Utah has a limited number of OOC games to schedule.

That said - the reality is that Utah scheduled this year to potentially win the PAC12 championship - but not to be in play for a national championship.

They've scheduled a warm up and a decent NIU team, that they should beat. The rivalry game should be considered a "good" game - even if BYU is having a bad year - because it lets the players deal with the emotions of a big game leading up to the game. But if Utah is really interested in going to the playoffs - they really have to schedule up.

In a world where the PAC12 is not seen as being as strong as the other P5 conferences, you have to schedule marque matchups outside of conference and win them. Maybe if USC or Stanford were as strong as past years, it would matter less. But it does matter.

I even read an article back in August in which an Ohio State honk was asking the question as to whether or not their schedule would hurt them as far as potentially getting into the playoffs. And the Big 10 is relatively strong this year.

So if you want to be in the playoffs - you make sure your schedule is stronger. And there is obvious risk/reward in that approach.

But using OOC games as a break or as a warm up to the conference won't get it done. Particularly for the PAC12 - which just doesn't seem to get the respect of some of the other conferences.