Utah Not Treated Unfairly By Polls
8 Jan
Apparently, the state of Utah takes football so seriously that they may want to file a lawsuit over the Utes not playing for the national title. But Utah was not left out of the title game simply because they don’t belong to a BCS conference.
All you have to do is examine the polls throughout the season to see this. Utah’s biggest problem wasn’t being in the Mountain West Conference. Their problem was not even schedule strength, as most people argue. Utah’s biggest downfall was starting the season unranked. And if you’re an unranked team, or a team that begins the season ranked lowly instead of in the top ten, you have little-to-no shot of playing for the national title. And no lawsuit is going to change that.
Two undefeated seasons, zero national titles
You can’t blame Utah’s not being ranked on their conference, either. In the preseason, BYU was ranked no. 16 in the AP Poll and no. 17 in the USA Today Poll. By midseason, BYU had climbed into the top ten—before most of the teams ranked ahead of them ever lost a game. Therefore, BYU had a more legitimate shot at and argument for playing in the title game than Utah ever has. Had BYU managed to win out, the only reason we’d still be looking at a Florida-Oklahoma BCS Championship Game is…well, both of those teams were smart enough to lose early, and they both started the season in the top ten.
Now, you’re probably saying, “What about Alabama? They jumped from 24 to 9 in the AP Poll after one week and would be in the title game had they beaten Florida.” Well, Alabama did something Utah never did—beat a top ten team. Nevermind the fact that Clemson never belonged in the top ten—preseason polls are never accurate, but this was good enough to impress voters. Utah didn’t beat a team ranked that highly until it was just too late. Keep pointing out that the Utes beat Michigan, Oregon State and BYU. That’s not good enough. Beat a team like Alabama during the regular season, and then you’ll get the ranking you believe you deserve. Like it or not, the only thing that would have impressed voters enough for Utah to play for the title is beating a Big 12 or SEC team, or USC, during the regular season. This is true for a lot of teams, regardless of their conference.
Take Penn State as another example. This is a BCS conference team that has gone undefeated and been left out of the title game before. In the preseason, PSU was ranked no. 22. Until losing to Iowa, everyone talked about whether or not PSU would be left out of the title game. We saw teams like Texas Tech win and jump PSU in the polls. I have few doubts that PSU still would have played in the Rose Bowl had they gone undefeated. And people would have justified that by saying that PSU didn’t play anybody all season long. The Oregon State blowout would have meant just as little as Utah’s close win over that same team did.
In fact, Auburn, from the SEC, was left out of the title game after an undefeated season. Every season, some team is whining that they should play for the national title, and they are usually from BCS conferences.
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