Washington Football: 5 reasons Huskies will beat Utah for Pac-12 title

Washington football takes on Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game on Friday night. Here are five reasons the Huskies will beat the Utes in Santa Clara.

Washington took down rival Washington State in the Apple Cup on Black Friday, locking up a spot in the Pac-12 championship game for the second time in three years. The Huskies take on a Utah squad they already faced once in 2018, and they are riding a three-game winning streak as they head to Santa Clara for the Friday-night showdown agains the Utes.

In their three losses this year, the 9-3 Huskies fell by a combined 10 points against Auburn, Oregon, and California. All three games took place away from Seattle, with the Tigers loss transpiring in SEC territory in a “neutral” game in Atlanta that was 108 miles northeast up the I-85 from the Auburn campus and nearly 2200 miles as the crow flies from Seattle.

Not all neutral-site games are created equal, though, and the Huskies are perfectly familiar with Levi’s Stadium after playing there two years ago against Colorado. Washington is the team that gets to remain in their own time zone, while Utah will fall back an hour from Mountain time.

Why else might Washington prevail over the Utes on Friday night? Here are three reasons the smart money is on the Huskies to win their second Pac-12 crown in three years.