Published: January 03, 2009 09:54 pm      

College football’s national champion should be a Ute

In 1998, the Tennessee Volunteers won the national championship in the inaugural year of the Bowl Championship Series.

Earlier that year, the Kentucky Wildcats captured the NCAA men’s basketball championship 78-69. The team they beat? The Utah Fighting Utes.

Ten years later, Utah is back on the national stage, this time in football. They dominated (that hurts to write) my Alabama Crimson Tide 31-17 on Friday night in the Sugar Bowl to finish 13-0.

The so-called BCS National Championship Game is slated for Thursday between Florida and Oklahoma. One problem: the nation’s best team has already spoken.

Utah has no losses — zero, none, nada — while the Gators and Sooners each have one. No matter who wins (Florida) the so-called national title game they’ll still have one loss.

If ever a season begged for a change, it’s this one. If it took my Tide to lose to Utah to make that point, then so be it.

Ten years ago, the Utes played for the NCAA basketball title. Why shouldn’t they have the same right on the gridiron? It’s America, everyone deserves a chance. Heck, with this system, Fresno State couldn’t have won the College World Series last year in one of the great stories in recent college sports. After all, the Bulldogs play in the WAC.

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said after the Sugar Bowl that he would vote his team No. 1 in the coaches poll. After all, the Utes are undefeated, and no one else is.

If I had a vote in the Associated Press poll, Utah would be my pick. Why not a split national champion? It could — and should — happen. The BCS has its winner, but the AP is a separate entity. I’m sure Thursday’s winner (Florida) will still get the most votes, but it won’t be unanimous. Far from it.

Shouldn’t every sport have one — 1 — champion who wins the title on the field? Who is to say that Utah couldn’t beat Florida or Oklahoma or Texas or USC or whoever else claims to be the best team.

Give them a chance. It only takes one game. Utah probably wouldn’t beat any of those teams often, but they only have to do it once, and the Utes did that to Alabama.

This has actually happened to Utah before In 2004, the Utes were 12-0, beat Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl, but joined another unbeaten — Auburn (13-0) — on the sidelines. Of course, USC (13-0) and Oklahoma (12-1) were also unbeaten until the Trojans won the BCS title game.

The so-called experts point to Utah’s schedule as being the reason why they shouldn’t play with the ‘big boys.’ Nick Saban — Alabama’s $4 million a year coach — even gave the Utes bulletin board material with his comment that his school was from a ‘real’ BCS conference.

Utah beat the teams on their schedule. They shouldn’t be punished because the Mountain West isn’t the SEC or Big Twelve. The Utes won at Michigan (Big Ten), knocked off Oregon State (Pac Ten)— which beat USC — and defeated MWC foes Texas Christian and Brigham Young, both of whom were Top 20 teams throughout the season.

Florida beat some good teams, including Alabama, LSU and Georgia, but also beat The Citadel, and lost to Mississippi. Oklahoma beat Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, but also have wins over Chattanooga and winless Washington. And, the Sooners lost to Texas, which has one loss and won’t play in the national title game.

In a story published after Friday’s win over Alabama, the AP had a list of undefeated teams that didn’t win the national title. Included on that list was Utah, and there’s still a week to go in the season.

That is a problem. A team shouldn’t finish 13-0 and just have to settle for No. 2 or 3 or 4.

This situation has happened before. Often. Since 1991, seven teams — Utah and Auburn twice — have finished undefeated and without a title to show for it. In Auburn’s case, that’s a good thing, especially in ‘93 when the Tigers were on NCAA probation.

Still, this ‘system’ begs for a change. We can’t have a 65-team playoff like the NCAAs, but at least let’s use the four major bowls games — Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta (whatever happened to the Cotton) — and make those play-in games for a four-team playoff.

It would extend the season by one week. We already have a national title game. Push it back a week or shorten the bowl season (please) and have two semifinal games and then play for it all.

Sure, there are going to be seasons when a so-called non-BCS school gets drilled in a bowl game, such as Hawaii last year. But, Utah and Boise State have proven they can play with the so-called ‘big boys.’

What is the greatest allure of the NCAA basketball tournament? It’s Cinderella. Utah would be this year’s Cinderella.

There have been split national champions before, and it happened a lot in the past. Alabama credits itself with 12 championships, but AP has the Tide listed at six. That’s because there have been so many different organizations over the years determining the final champion.

All that could be solved very easily. Play it off on the field. One winner, no debate, no voting, no computers.

Could Utah beat Florida or Oklahoma? We’ll never know.

As for what is a Ute? It’s a darn good football team. No. 1 to be exact.

—Contact Brian Woodson

at bwoodson@bdtonline.com