Utah's case for a national title

Did you catch any of the pre-game show before the Sugar Bowl? If you did, then you basically saw the announcers say that the Utes weren't in the same class as Alabama. Most of the country agreed and even die hard Ute fans weren't crazy enough to predict more than a close victory. Barry Switzer echoed the sentiments of most pundits when he said that Alabama wouldn't even have recruited a single one of the Ute players. The funny thing is that he's right. The recruits that Utah and teams in the MWC get are not the nationally ranked players that go to play at Alabama and the SEC. Tonight's game showed what a team can accomplish versus individual talent. This game doesn't mean that Utah has more talented players, but it does mean that Utah is the better team.

The final score for the game doesn't even tell the whole story. If you started watching in the second half when Alabama made it 21-17, you might think that these were two evenly matched teams heading into the fourth quarter. The truth is that Utah DOMINATED this game. Brain Johnson played one of the best games of his career and lead a precise passing attack. Alabama never got any pressure on him and so he had all day to throw. Their receivers made exceptional plays for big gains in the first quarter and seemed to get the extra yards they needed for first downs. The SEC is supposed to be known for its defense but their defense was really a non factor in this game. They looked slow, they missed tackles and didn't make the stops they needed to make.

There were many surprising aspects of this game but Utah's defense was astounding. They looked like they were playing against a slow BYU team the way that they were beating Alabama's O-line. Their overall team speed was impressive and the way they forced John Parker Wilson into making bad throw after bad throw was the difference maker. Alabama would put a couple of good plays together and then Utah would get a sac that killed their drive. Utah's secondary also played well and there were at least three balls that were easy interceptions that Utah defenders dropped that would have blown this game out. The crazy thing is that Utah is only the second fastest defense in the MWC.

The knock against smaller conferences is that they don't have the athletes to compete with bigger conferences. It wasn't the case here as Utah was so much faster on both sides of the ball and I don't think it was an intensity issue. I know that Alabama must have been disappointed to not be in the Championship game but that was weeks ago and if you can't get up for playing in the Sugar Bowl then you probably shouldn't have been invited to be there. Another wrinkle to this victory is that it was practically a road game for Utah. The game was in SEC country and Nick Saban has a lot of fans down in Louisiana for his work at LSU. Utah doesn't have a national following like Alabama and the crowd was decidedly crimson. The near silence in the fourth quarter was all you needed to hear about the power of this victory. If you played this game five more times, Utah would win four of them.

National Title hopes
Utah numerically has no chance at winning the national title but now you wonder how they would fare against Florida or Oklahoma. Honestly, I don' t think that they would beat either of those teams, or even beat USC but we'll never know and there is beauty in that. Ute fans can forever feel like they were robbed of a chance at the national title and end the season on a high instead of feeling disappointed. No one remembers second place but people will remember an undefeated season and the belief that they could have won the national title will stay with them forever.

Looking a little closer at the resumes of Utah, Oklahoma and Florida
Oklahoma has played a great schedule and has a very impressive resume.
Their wins against bowl teams are (rankings)
1.Cincinnati ( 12) 55-26 H
2.TCU (11) 35-10 H
3.Texas Tech (7) 65-21 H
4.Oklahoma State (13) 61-41 R
5.Missouri (21) 62-21 N
6.Kansas (NR) 45-31 H
7.Nebraska (NR) 62-28 H
They lost to 3d ranked Texas 45-35. The stunning thing about their wins are the numbers that they put up. The destroyed good teams by whopping margins. People in the MWC know that TCU is a good squad and if you watched the game, it was over before at the end of the first quarter. They did play 5 sub .500 teams to pad their win total but they thoroughly demolished those teams too. This is a team that not just beat but killed really good teams and lost close to one great team.

Florida also played a quality schedule as seen by the number of bowl teams on the list but they don't have as many wins against good teams. Their loss vs Miss is looking better than it did a couple of weeks ago as Miss finished strong but the loss was at home and it still isn't like losing to 3d ranked Texas.
1.Alabama (4) 31-20 N
2.Georgia (15) 49-10 R
3.Florida State (NR) 45-15 R
4.LSU (NR) 51-21 H
5.Vanderbilt (NR) 42-14 R
6.Kentucky (NR) 63-5 H
7.South Carolina (NR) 56-6 H
8.Miami (NR) 26-3 H
9.Hawaii (NR) 56-10 H
Loss to Miss 31-30 H
Florida gets credit for having played a lot of tough games for the duration of the season. Something that gets overlooked is how tough it is mentally to prepare yourself each week for a good team vs every once in a while. As you look closely, you notice that a lot of their wins are not against the upper echelon teams and their best wins are a close win against Alabama and a disappointing Georgia team. Hawaii and Miami squeaked into bowl games and both lost to mediocre opponents.

I have gone over Utah's record in previous posts, in summary
Alabama (4) 31-17 R
TCU (11) 13-10 H
BYU (16) 48-24 H
Oregon State (NR) 31-28 H
Air Force (NR) 30-23 R
Colorado State (NR) 49-16 H
Ok, not super impressive but more impressive than any previous non-BCS team. It really would have helped Utah if Michigan was good this year and they didn't play Weber and Utah state. Regardless, if you compare the three teams wins, I think Oklahoma's looks the most impressive but how much is loss worth? Or how many good wins is worth a loss? Or better how many good wins does it take to erase a loss? 1 good win, 2, 3 good wins cancel out a loss? Hard to say. Utah has better top tier wins than Florida. It also played three less bowl eligible teams but it also didn't suffer a loss. I think it is clear that Oklahoma has the better resume vs. Florida but between Utah and Florida it isn't as clear. It all depends on what a loss is worth.