NEW ORLEANS — The shock waves were still rippling Saturday.
Utah’s 31-17 victory over vaunted Alabama in Friday’s Sugar Bowl was as thorough as it was unexpected, and left mouths agape all along the Gulf Coast.
According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Utes’ upset win “has to rank with the most stunning in the 75-year history of the bowl.” And the Utah bandwagon almost toppled over from all the pundits — who had previously dismissed the Utes — trying to climb on.
About the only ones who weren’t surprised were the Utes themselves.
Maybe it’s time for everybody else to stop being shocked, too.
Since the 2003 season, Utah has won 59 games and lost just 16. Since 2000, the Utes have won 16 games against teams from the six major conferences — the “BCS” schools — more than any other non-BCS team. And they have won eight consecutive bowl games dating to 1999, the longest such streak in the nation.
Now this: a 13-0 season that included four wins over nationally ranked teams and was capped with a signature victory over one of the most storied programs in all of college football. And in an environment, no less, that was essentially a road contest for the Utes, given the 55,000 or so Crimson Tide fans who invaded the Superdome.
“There’s only one undefeated team in the United States of America right now in Division I football, and it’s these guys right here,” said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham.
Utah’s players, coaches and fans were all staking a claim to the nation’s No. 1 ranking after Friday’s win, and their logic was not unreasonable.
“You have to vote us No. 1. We’re the only team left standing,” said Sean Baker, amid the Utes revelry in the French Quarter early Saturday morning.
That isn’t going to happen, of course. Oklahoma and Florida square off for the BCS championship Thursday, and the winner will claim the national title. But Utah could garner a first-place vote or two in the polls after what it did here, and that leads to a more pertinent question.
Have the Utes finally secured a place in the national football conciousness?
The Alabama team the Utes crushed has won 12 national championships and spent the last month of this season ranked No. 1.
Utah still isn’t USC, Ohio State or Texas. Or Oklahoma or Alabama, for that matter. The Utes don’t graduate to that stratosphere on the basis of one Sugar Bowl victory — their overall resources and national media exposure still pale next to those powerhouses.
But the Utes have now probably earned themselves a place-holder when the national conversation turns to college football.
The Utes will likely receive additional consideration and scrutiny in the coming seasons because of what they accomplished in the Superdome — and certainly will next season with 15 of their 22 offensive and defensive starters scheduled to return.
