In the current landscape of college football, Utah finds itself in a truly ideal situation. Most fans want to hear their team mentioned nationally with the usual customers. However, that typically is an indicator of national respect. If your team can be mentioned with the likes of Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, Michigan and Oregon, you can rest easy that those outside your market recognize and show respect by putting them in that conversation. For Utah, searching for validation through that metric, at least for now, is not necessary.

In the latest ESPN top 25 rankings, the Utes are mentioned in fact with those names. Behind Georgia, Ohio State and Texas, but ahead of Michigan, Florida State and LSU. The respect factor is present. You can see it almost anywhere in major college football circles. Whether it’s the television networks, CFB reporters or platforms. Almost everywhere you look, Utah is getting the respect part without hesitation. Due in large part to the return of Cam Rising and a focused approach to the transfer portal.

Utah finds themselves in an advantageous position on the field before they ever take the field. They finished the last year’s campaign with a lower win total than expected. However, a large portion of that comes back to an offense that was not whole and didn’t have their preferred signal caller due to a knee injury. Prior to Rising being out, he led the Utes to back-to-back Pac-12 championships and an eventual Rose Bowl appearance.

Utah picked to win 2024 Big 12 Championship in preseason media poll

Even coming off their 8-5 finish, almost every national publication that puts out a preseason Top 25 ranking has Utah slotted above the 20th spot. Not to throw shade, but 247Sports is the only real outlier, ranking the Utes at 18th in the country. Every other big national outlet has Utah somewhere between 8th and 14th. Putting them right in that discussion with the best programs entering the 2024 season. It would also suggest making the 12-team College Football playoff is not an unrealistic goal.

The factor that Utes fans don’t have to contend with is the hype dynamic. The national media seems content to respect Utah from a distance, but has not moved into pumping them up or pushing a narrative like we see due east at Colorado. While it’s nice to be noticed, and nicer still to be feared, hype is not necessary to win. As a matter of fact, hype makes winning more difficult. It also inflates expectations to an unrealistic level.

When there is no hype, the expectations are what they are and typically remain unchanged. When you look around the country, there are plenty of teams that are operating against lofty or even unfair expectations due to that factor. Alabama doesn’t have Nick Saban, but the expectations are still set for the Alabama we’ve come to know over time. Oregon seems to keep moving the goalposts on themselves. After Georgia saw all 11 defensive starters get drafted, the expectation was the championship was theirs to lose. There are even a couple of teams that are basing their actual expectations on the hype aspect, which is a recipe for trouble.

Everyone in Salt Lake City and abroad rooting for the Utes should all enjoy this dynamic as one typically leads to the other. When teams are respected as a top 10 team at this juncture in the calendar, hype usually follows. Yet, for the most part, we aren’t hearing about where Rising ranks as an NFL draft prospect, what receiver will have 1,000 yards this year, or the damage Utah is going to do to the field once the season starts. All of which could prove to be true, but we aren’t hearing it. That’s the difference in where Utah is right now and where they don’t want to be. Kyle Whittingham’s team won’t be the Belle of the Ball before arriving. They want to be the one everyone isn’t paying attention to until it’s too late.

What separates Utah from other programs feeding into hype is that it doesn’t need to be more than they are. Some teams will have to be special to win games against teams viewed to be more consistently established. Utah just needs to be themselves. If health is not a massive concern, the season’s success should simply come down to whether they execute or not.

Utah opens the 2024 season at home against Southern Utah on Thursday, August 29.

SALT LAKE CITY — Northern Utah is now included in an expanded Red Flag Warning issued ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with fire officials warning residents to use caution with fireworks and campfires.

REAL-TIME CONDITIONS: Get the latest real-time temperatures and forecasts by downloading the FREE Utah Weather Authority app

The National Weather Service updated its warning Wednesday to include all of northern Utah, along with the Grand Staircase and the San Rafael Swell. While the warning is in effect until 9 p.m., condition are expected to redevelop against the Swell Thursday.

Wind gusts are forecast to reach up to 30 miles per hour, with relative humidity measuring between 10-15%, which creates critical fire conditions.

The following counties are now under a Red Flag Warning:

• Box Elder
• Cache
• Emery
• Garfield
• Juab
• Kane
• Morgan
• Rich
• Salt Lake
• San Juan
• Sanpete
• Summit
• Tooele
• Utah
• Washington
• Wasatch
• Wayne
• Weber

Crews were battling a blaze in an Ivins neighborhood Wednesday, with air resources being used to drop water on the flames.

Santa Clara-Ivins Fire & Rescue

On Wednesday, the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands said it had seen an increase in fire starts from debris burns and vehicles across the state. According to the agency, there have been 56 fire starts cause by vehicles and 31 by debris burns since June 1.

Drivers are warned to check their brakes and tires, which if worn out, can can sparks. If there’s a need to pull over to the side of a road, make sure to park away from dry vegetation and keep trailer chains tightened so they don’t drag on the road.

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab. [Subscribe to our newsletter here.]

Renters in most Utah counties likely don’t make enough to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment, according to new data.

The “Out of Reach 2024″ report was released recently the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The report uses HUD’s fair-market rent calculations to determine the housing wage — how much a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing — for states, counties and metropolitan areas across the country.

The report found that “more renters than ever before are paying more than they can afford on rent,” and risk homelessness, said Diane Yentel, who heads the coalition.

That includes Utah, where the mean wage for renters was lower than the housing wage in all but four counties, and was within 50 cents of it in another two. All six are rural counties.

Renters in Utah can’t afford to buy a home in all but one county, according to a recent analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune of U.S. Census Bureau and real-estate industry data. And based on a Tribune analysis of the new report, they can’t afford to rent in most counties, either.

The coalition’s analysis found Utah’s statewide housing wage — what a person would have to earn to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair-market rent — is $26.89 an hour.

That cost varies from $17.40 an hour in several rural counties to $30.88 in Salt Lake County, and a maximum of $34.75 in Summit County. There is data available for every county in Utah except Daggett County.

Meanwhile, the mean renter wage is lower statewide and in nearly every county than the housing wage — sometimes by double-digit numbers.

It’s only higher in Duchesne, Garfield, San Juan and Wayne counties, all rural counties in eastern or southeastern Utah.

Mean renter wages also are lower but within 50 cents an hour in two other counties — Box Elder County in the northwestern part of the state and Uintah County in eastern Utah. That gap is small enough that the NLIHC determined a renter could work one job and still afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment.

In other counties, the gap between the typical renter and housing wages varies from 87 cents in Beaver County to $15.64 in Kane County and averages about $7 an hour (more than $14,500 a year).

There is more affordability for one-bedroom apartments, but the mean renter wage is still short in 18 counties, including Cache, Davis, Grand, Iron, Kane, Salt Lake, Tooele, Washington and Weber.

The gap matters because even in “an improving economic landscape,” renters continue to struggle, Yentel said, and that leads to more evictions and higher rates of homelessness.

There is, however, some good news for Utah renters.

For one, the state’s housing wage is about in the middle compared to other states.

Utah’s housing wage also is lower than neighboring Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, as well as other western states like California, Oregon and Washington. Utah’s northern neighbors have housing wages somewhat lower than Utah’s — Idaho’s is about $4 lower, and Wyoming’s is about $8 lower.

And though there are new and luxury rentals across the state that cost much more than the fair-market rent HUD set, one analysis found typical rents for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments are lower.

Median rent along the Wasatch Front is between $77 and $166 a month less than fair-market rent for two-bedroom apartments, according to data from ApartmentList.com.

And median rent is only higher than fair-market in Davis County by $8, the ApartmentList data shows — it is lower in Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties by at least $80.

Utah has focused on ways to improve the state’s housing crisis, but most have focused on homeownership.

As part of the Out of Reach report, the coalition suggested solutions for the rental side, though they are actions the federal government is advised to take. The coalition has recommended:

• Long-term federal investments in affordable housing, including rental assistance.

• Construction of deeply affordable housing.

• Preservation of existing affordable housing.

• Stronger renter protections.

Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.