Why Utah is #1

No team in the country has more wins than Utah.

Every team in the country has more losses.

Those two statements alone should be enough to end the debate about who is #1 in college football, and yet I sit here the day after the BCS National Title game unfulfilled. Florida has been named the National Champions by the BCS and they earned it by beating Oklahoma last night in the National Championship game. Florida was also voted #1 in the country by the AP voters today and this is where I take exception to things.

Florida, the national champions, finished the season 13-1. The one loss Florida had was against Ole Miss at home by 1 point, the same Ole Miss team that went on to beat Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl 47-34. That is the Texas Tech team that beat Texas and tied Oklahoma for the division title. Ultimately Florida had to beat the #1 ranked, and undefeated, Alabama Crimson Tide 31-20 in order to overcome that loss and play in the championship game. Remember that because it will come into play later. So now that the final rankings are out We can see that Florida beat #5 OU, #6 Alabama, #13 UGA, #21 FSU while losing to #14 Mississippi.

USC who finished Ranked #3 in the country feels they were slighted out of the national championship game since they had the same number of losses as the two teams playing for the national championship. USC can blame part of their exclusion from the game on their conference not wanting to have 12 teams and a conference championship game. While UF and OU were both playing for their conference title in an extra game against a quality opponent USC was sitting at home hoping for both of those teams to lose. USC could not make the argument they had the same record as the two teams playing for the national championship because they did not play as many games, instead they were relegated to claiming they had the same number of losses as the two teams playing and that is a weak argument. In the end USC finished the season with the same number of losses as the national champion and 1 less win. They did finish the season with wins over #8 Penn State, #9 Ohio State, #10 Oregon and a loss to #18 Oregon State at Oregon State. Despite all of the ridicule USC took for playing in a lesser conference than the SEC and Big 12, they finished with an impressive resume.

Texas finished the season Ranked #4 but complain they were slighted out of the national title game by the pollsters. Ironically they may have that slight to thank for finishing the season ranked above OU. I for one think they should have been playing the conference championship game after all they did finish with the same record and beat the Sooners head-to-head on a neutral field. Their lone loss came at the hands of in-state rivals and fellow division champs Texas Tech at Texas Tech. Despite this, I think things would have played out exactly the same with UT winning the Big 12, playing UF and losing (based on their performance against The Ohio State University I can not see them making a better showing against UF than OU did) and then finishing the season ranked below Oklahoma. Bottom line I think the three top teams in the Big 12 were evenly matched and they all would have fallen to the Gators in the Miami. Texas did finish the season with wins over #5 OU, #9 Ohio State, #16 Oklahoma State, #19 Missouri and a loss to #12 Texas Tech. They finished the season with an identical record as USC and finished exactly where they belong behind UF and USC.

Now before I discuss Utah in detail I want to take a look at the conference they play in. The Utes do not have the luxury of playing in a conference that the BCS deems worthy of an automatic bid so they have an uphill battle because no matter how the conference does that year their teams have to go undefeated just to get an invite to the BCS, Lord only knows what it would take to get a title shot. This year the Mountain West went 1-0 against the Big Ten, 6-1 against the Pac 10, 1-3 against the Big 12 and 1-0 against the SEC before the bowl games. Don’t look now, but that is a .750 winning percentage against the big boys. The conference had a 3-2 record this season which is a higher winning percentage than the ACC, the Big Ten or the mighty Big 12 had. Those numbers are pretty darn respectable, not that anyone noticed. Now the only reason I went into the conference performance is because it is necessary to understand what Utah did this year. Utah did not win a bad conference, in fact they had the same percentage of conference teams make the top 25 as the SEC and a higher percentage of teams make the top 25 than the Pac 10, ACC, and Big East. The MWC finished the season with as many teams in the top 10 as the SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, and Big Ten. This year of all years you have to acknowledge the MWC as a legitimate conference.

Now that brings us to the topic of this post and the Utah Utes who finished the season ranked #2 behind UF. Similar to both USC they play in a conference that does not have a conference championship so they only played in 12 games before the bowl game. Unlike USC the Utes could make the claim that despite not having a conference championship they had the same number of wins as both teams playing in the national championship game. Utah did what they needed to do during the regular season and won every game they played and for that they were rewarded with the opportunity to travel to Louisiana to play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and not play in the BCS National Championship game. This is the same Alabama team that finished their regular season undefeated and ranked #1 five weeks in a row. The same Alabama team that, at that time, had the same record as both teams playing in the BCS National Championship game. All Utah did was go into the Sugar Bowl and beat Alabama 31-17, the same Alabama team that Florida had to beat 31-20 in order to get a shot at the national title. After the conclusion of the season Utah finished a perfect 13-0 with wins over #6 Alabama, #7 TCU, #18 Oregon State (the same team that beat USC), and #25 BYU.

Utah was denied a chance at the BCS National Championship game the day the final BCS Rankings came out. A Ranking system that relies heavily on voters to express their opinions of who is the best team in the country. Voters that take their responsibility so seriously some admitted the first and only time they saw an undefeated Utah play was in the Sugar Bowl, after the final rankings. Voters that take things so seriously that some coaches relegate that responsibility to assistants. That left things to the Media, the so called experts of college football. The same football gurus that even after Utah solidly beat Alabama laughed them off because they don’t play in a real conference. All you can ask is that the teams go out and play the games they are scheduled to play. Normally that should be enough, but in this fouled up system that is only a small part of what does matter. The AP voters had a chance to do the right thing and vote the only undefeated team #1, instead they did what everyone expected them to do and went along with public Opinion.

Only one team won every game they played in the BCS division of college football this year. That team is Utah and that is the reason Utah is #1.