Looks like the BCS did what it was designed to do…screw Utah

After Utah completed its undefeated season by beating up on Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, I started to wonder why they wouldn’t get some consideration as national champions. Sure, they can’t win the BCS National Championship, but maybe they can get one of those USC-styled paper championships. I mean, if you think about it, Utah had a pretty impressive season.

I know they’re in a non-BCS conference, and play the likes of Utah State and Wyoming. But, they beat Alabama, who was ranked #1 for five straight weeks at the end of the year, and was a few minutes away from playing for a national championship. Utah also beat TCU, which will likely finish the season ranked in the top 10. They also beat BYU, who will likely end up a top-25 team. Another top-25 team defeated by Utah this season is Oregon State, who some of you may remember as the team who beat USC earlier in the year. Utah’s resume may not be stacked, but it’s not entirely thin either.

Actually, Utah’s resume is more impressive than Florida’s, in terms of top-25 teams played. Florida beat only one top-25 team in Georgia (although this will likely end up as 2 if Florida State jumps back in the poll), and lost to the other top-25 team it faced in Ole Miss. I’d like to argue that beating LSU, the most talented 8-5 team in the country, is reason to rank Florida ahead of Utah, but that’s for another day. Just based on top-25 teams defeated, Utah beats Florida 4-2. I still don’t think Utah would beat Florida, but on paper, you could make the argument that they’re more deserving of a national championship. Although I guess if Florida ends up beating Oklahoma, that would make their resume as impressive as Utah’s in terms of teams beaten, if not more so. But, you still can’t get past that whole “only team to go undefeated” thing.

Anyway, this whole thing got me curious about the 1984 season, when BYU won the national championship. They’re the last team from a “mid-major” conference to do so. Just like Utah this year, BYU finished the ’84 season as the only undefeated team. There were a bunch of 1-loss teams that year, including Washington and Nebraska, but somehow BYU was voted #1 in all the major polls. I wasn’t really following college football back then, but apparently it was a pretty controversial thing at the time. This might have something to do with the fact that not one team on BYU’s schedule finished the year in the top 25, and they beat an average 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. Not really all that impressive.

The thing that I found kind of funny was that the articles I read on wikipedia seemed to suggest that it was BYU’s national championship that led the 6 power conferences to form the Bowl Coalition, the predecessor to the BCS, back in 1992. I’m not sure the math works, as that would mean it would have taken 8 years to get it started, but I guess it is certainly plausible. Can’t say that the BCS conferences are all that crazy about change, so maybe it would take that long to get off the ground. Let’s just assume that this was the catalyst for the creation of what is now the BCS. Well, I’d say it’s doing exactly what it was supposed to do…screw over the mid-majors like Utah.

As I stated earlier, Utah’s resume is pretty impressive, maybe impressive enough to get them into the championship game. The problem though, is that we really didn’t know how talented they were until they beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Until then, they were just a cute story. The team from the crappy conference who managed to beat all the other teams from their crappy conference. We all thought that was great for them, then laughed at the thought of them playing Bama in the Sugar Bowl. (okay, I was mainly laughing about all the Utah fans in the French Quarter, but anyway). All of a sudden they beat Bama, and it’s like, “whoa! Wait a tick, these guys can play. Oh well, too bad the season’s over.”

It’s a shame, because Utah couldn’t have done much more to bolster their resume. They won every game on their schedule, beat 4 top-25 teams, including a team ranked #1 for a third of the season. Not much more they could have done. Well, this year at least. I guess for a school like Utah to get more respect in future BCS polls, they’ll have to start scheduling the perennial powers like Ohio State, USC, and LSU. They need to go for broke every year with their scheduling if they hope to finish at the top of the BCS standings. Because, beating up on the Mountain West and the WAC just won’t get it done.

Maybe this is the kind of thing that will finally get people talking seriously about a playoff. But, I doubt it. If keeping schools like Utah out of the championship picture was the goal of the BCS, I can’t see the powers-that-be changing things for them. For what it’s worth, I certainly haven’t changed my position. As much as I’d love to see what Utah could do in a playoff, I still prefer the current system. Doesn’t really matter though, because I really don’t see things changing any time soon. I guess Utah will have to remain just a cute story.

On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, this gets a Howie Long.