Four years ago, Utah was a team led by a hotshot young coach, with a cute gimmicky offense and a future #1 pick in the shotgun.
The Utes rolled through their schedule and slid up the polls through the season, and when all was said and done, they became the first ‘BCS buster.’
The reward for their efforts was a Fiesta Bowl matchup against an 8-4 Pittsburgh team that won a Big East that had been weakened by the defection of Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC.
The end result was a 35-7 whipping of a clearly outclassed Pitt team and a top-five finish. As is often the case with that kind of success, it comes at a price, and the Utes lost their hotshot young coach to a big-timer (that worked out well for Urban Meyer, didn‘t it?), and their Heisman Trophy candidate QB bolted for the NFL (that didn’t work out so well for Alex Smith, did it?).
Four years later, the spread option is a household name, but as for the Utes? Still a work in progress, but it‘s fair to say they‘ve earned a few new fans.
In Friday night’s 31-17 Sugar Bowl win over Alabama, they not only got a ‘real’ opponent, and not only did Utah prove that they could hang with the best, but that they are one of the best teams in the nation. And they did it in SEC territory, in a game that the SEC has dominated, against the SEC’s most storied program.
How dare they…
How could they come into our territory and…
Who do they think they are…
What’s a Ute anyway…
Quite a few Alabama fans ran those thoughts through their heads as they watched, and John Parker Wilson is probably still wondering what the heck happened after he got sacked eight times and pressured several more by a relentless Utah defense that held Glen Coffee and Mark Ingram to 62 yards on 21 carries and teed off on Wilson at every possible chance.
There is no way that this one can be spun to read anything less than an impressive, deserved victory for Utah. And if you’re trying to, you need to take off your crimson-colored glasses.
Andre Smith’s absence did make a difference, but I’m not sure how adept he is at pass coverage, or for that matter, how much the Tide’s defense is, after allowing Brian Johnson to carve them up for 27 completions, 336 yards, and three touchdowns in an interception-less performance.
Alabama stopped the run, allowing only 13 rushing yards, but their much-vaunted defense was second-best on the night by far. They didn’t account for Johnson, the duo of Freddie Brown (12 catches, 125 yards) and Braden Godfrey (6 catches, 75 yards, TD).
Forget needing any bulletin-board material, Utah was just ready to play, and instead of wilting when Alabama made their inevitable comeback to pull within 21-17 in the third quarter, the Utes found their second wind and administered the knockout blows.
They’ll no doubt receive some #1 votes in the AP poll, and it wouldn’t be far-fetched if the writers put them at #2. But, thanks to USC’s convincing win over Penn State in the Rose Bowl, #3 or #4 might be a more realistic possibility, depending on what Texas does in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.
Will this become a more regular occurrence? The big guys are going to win more often than not, that’s a given. But it won’t take too many more of these before people stop being surprised about a Utah or Boise State beating an established power, and it may not be long before one of those ‘BCS busters’ takes home the biggest trophy of all.
