The Jason Salas Experience

Make no mistake: if I was coaching a college football team this season, I'd be scared to face Utah.  Damn scared.  It's unfortunate that the Utes, who finished this season as the only undefeated BCS team, aren't getting more consideration as this year's national champion.  It's a downright shame.  

The team has Mercurial speed.  The defense could match you up front or be in your face step for step downfield with the best of them.  Brian Johnson has got crazy game and will play on Sunday.

But there's a reason Utah isn't getting more love from the writers, coaches and computers that determine the ridiculous system that is the Bowl Championship Series we're forced to deal with.  Several of them, actually.  All of which arguably merited, and all of which unfair. 

The Utes basically crushed the notion that conferences not named the Pac-10, Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big East or Big 12 can't hang with the big boys after stomping Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.  Hawaii's monumental 41-10 loss to Georgia in last year's Sugar Bowl made a huge statement about non-BCS conferences being able to compete despite their regular season dominance.  Still, the Mountain West is unfairly treated by the media more as a fetish than a collection of legitimate athletic programs that can produce a few teams that can consistently be nationally competitive. 

Building on my previous point, let's face it - as good as the Utes have consistently played this season, conventional logic projects them coming up short against the other traditional powerhouses vying for the crystal pigskin.  And in lieu of a tournament system, we'll never know.  I'd like to see two national semi-finals pitting USC/Utah and OU/Florida.  That would be really cool.   

Even though recent history under Urban Meyer brought Utah to national prominence, BYU in many people's eyes remains the Green Mountain State's premiere program.  Historically the school has owned more NCAA records, Heismans, national titles - ergo more luster - than their in-state rivals from Salt Lake City. 

The U of U still lays claim to being the former stomping grounds of the likes of Andre Miller, Keith Van Horn and Andrew Bogut - and eternally under the tutelage of hardcourt Svengali Rick Majerus.  Even though their days of March miracles are now a distant memory, it's still got a great feel as a hoops school.  And the eternal shadow cast over the state by John Stockton and Karl Malone will always make Utah very basketball-friendly.  This doesn't bode well the later we get into the Fall. 

Aside from a scant few early season out-of-conference games, Utah's time zone makes it tough for fans throughout the country to really see how good the Utes are.  Too late for the East Coast and not exactly L.A. time, they're in a tough spot marketwise.

The funny thing about Utah is that it features a roster with several two-star recruits, so it doesn't get scouts oohing an ahhing over a bench full of high school all-Americans.  It's caught in that limbo that doesn't get them enough street cred to be held in the same light with the Michigans and Florida States of the world, but not enough of the "shocking success" value that the school can engender the Cinderella storyline like Vanderbilt got this year.  They're just a very well coached, disciplined football program that executes incredibly well...but being vanilla isn't conducive to drawing the ire of national media.

Remember the classic line from Wayne's World?  "Hi...I'm in...Delaware."  Yep.  I'll avoid making any obvious cracks about how the only things going for the state are the Jazz and polygamy, but with sports on a national scale being 70% image, Utah just doesn't have the sexiness that markets like Miami, Texas or LSU naturally draw.  And the program lacks the historical context that makes Nebraska, Oklahoma and Ohio State the perpetual darlings of pollsters and servers.  Don't get me wrong, Utah's a beautiful state with outstanding citizens and I'd love to live there someday, but with the way of the sports world being heavily predicated on the lure of the host market, it just doesn't gel.

But all is not lost - there is hope.  Buffalo's come a long way and is reaping the rewards.  South Florida makes routine appearances on the boob tube.  Appalachian State's gotten its share of the national spotlight over the last couple of seasons.  Here's hoping that Utah and the impressive body of work its put together gets some more respect from national writers, networks and voters.

Because they've certainly earned it.