Utah deserves title-game consideration
CHRIS DUFRESNE / ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Unbeaten Utes shouldn't be overshadowed by all the talk about USC's slim chances.
There has been talk this week that a school out west, starting with the letter "U", should get a shot at the national title if things break a freakish way over college football's final weekend.
This school is ranked lower than No. 4 in this week's Bowl Championship Series and is considered "boxed out" by the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences.
Here's the Hail Mary hope:
What if Alabama hands Florida a second loss in Saturday's Southeastern Conference title game and three-loss Missouri shocks Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game?
This would leave undefeated Alabama headed toward the Jan. 8 national title game but needing a BCS playing partner.
Everyone assumes Alabama would play Texas.
Not so fast . . .
Texas didn't even win its own conference.
After 2001, when Nebraska advanced to the title game without even winning the Big 12 North, commissioners considered a rule change that would have required title-game participants to be league champions.
The commissioners decided against it, but many still think it's a good idea.
Sorry, Texas, for the purposes of this argument you're out.
Meaning: the school that deserves to play Alabama in this scenario would be the University of . . .
Utah.
All this talk-radio and Internet chatter about USC somehow slipping in the BCS title-game back door is being done with complete disregard for Utah.
I won't argue whether I actually think Utah could beat USC on a neutral field if you won't argue it was already done at the 2001 Las Vegas Bowl.
USC is the better team, OK, we all know that.
And Oklahoma was better than Boise State. We all knew that too.
Knowing Utah has no chance of making the BCS title game should not stop anyone from asking the question: why not?
Every team that is going to gripe about getting left out of the BCS this year could have done something about it.
Texas could have pushed Michael Crabtree out of bounds.
Penn State could have not lost to unranked Iowa.
USC could have not lost at Oregon State, which just had 65 points scored on its home field by Oregon.
Utah did everything it could.
Utah went 12-0 and won the Mountain West Conference.
Most years, the champion of that league would not warrant title-game consideration, but this is 2008.
If Utah can be ranked in the BCS ahead of Penn State, the Big Ten champion, and Texas Tech, the Big 12 South tri-champion, why can't it be considered for the national title?
