The Case for Utah

College football incites passion in fans and everyone thinks their team is number one. This year is no different. The winner of Thursdays BCS National Championship game between Oklahoma and Florida is supposed to decide the best team in college football. But, USC's annual Rose Bowl beat down of the Big Ten has led some to speculate that perhaps USC is the best team in the country. And, of course, Texas with their one-loss season, victory earlier in the year over Oklahoma, and Fiesta Bowl win over Ohio State, believes that they have the right to claim number one.

I've been watching college football for a long time. I like to think I'm a fairly reasonable, smart, informed fan of the game. And this may sound crazy, but I think that the University of Utah has every reason to chant, "We're number one!" and they're right.

First of all, Utah went undefeated. They won every game on their schedule. I don't care what conference you play in, an undefeated season is hard, damn hard. The main argument against Utah is their conference--the Mountain West is too weak. If Utah played in a big-time BCS conference they'd probably lose three or four games. Really? The Mountain West sent five teams to bowl games (all teams won their games except BYU), had three teams finish the season in the top 20 and will end up with two teams in the top 10 (Utah and TCU). The Big 10 might have one team finish in the top 10 (if Penn St. can hang on). The Big 10 sent seven teams to bowl games and the conference went 1-6. How about the Big East? The best team in the Big East was Cincinnati. They went 11-3 and lost to Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl. It's unlikely that a Big East team will finish the season in the top twenty. The ACC? They might finish with two teams in the top twenty (Virginia Tech and Florida St.). The highest ranked team in the ACC was Georgia Tech (14th) who got smoked by an un-ranked LSU team. So the argument against the Mountain West, and therefore against Utah, is no argument at all.

Next, they not only defeated, but thoroughly whipped, fourth-ranked Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Every pundit said that Utah didn't have the size, the speed, the athletes to compete with Alabama. Fox analyst Barry Switzer claimed that Utah didn't have a single player on their team that Alabama would recruit. Maybe they'll want to now. Because Utah was faster. Their defense was better (sacking John Parker Wilson eight times). And they "out-physicalled" Alabama's premier athletes. And don't forget that Alabama was ranked number 1 for a good part of the season.

Without a playoff system, the college football post-season is mostly subjective, nothing more than a beauty contest. Coaches and writers vote for the teams they think are the best. Everyone has their own criteria. Some favor win-loss record. Others factor in strength of schedule. And still others simply vote for the teams that have traditionally been powerhouses; they can't vote Utah as number one because they are, well, UTAH! And the Utes can't control that. But they did the one thing they could do. In the end, they proved it on the field.