Salt Lake City Tribune: Utah and BYU may well soon get bowled over

By Kurt Kragthorpe

Tribune Columnist

http://sltrib.com/collegesports/ci_3289422

 

Georgia Tech and Cal are simply too good to be playing in these two bowl games. Then again, at 6-5, the Utes and Cougars may have underachieved enough themselves to appear as harmless opponents who deserve to be overlooked.

Life is sort of funny for Utah's football program these days. San Diego State fired coach Tom Craft, even though he beat the Utes in October, with the school's new athletic director explaining that he believes the Aztecs should be able to do what Utah did last season.  And a year after breaking into the Bowl Championship Series and facing an inferior Pittsburgh team, the Utes find themselves in a lower-level postseason game against a much better Georgia Tech club.  Speaking of his team's Emerald Bowl opponent, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said, "You've got to tell me somebody who's better at 7-4."

California?

Maybe not. But Brigham Young hardly gets off easy in the Las Vegas Bowl, either. The Cougars are supposed to be playing the Pac-10's No. 5 team, but the Insight Bowl took hometown Arizona State over Cal. BYU would have a better chance against an ASU team that lost its starting quarterback and needed a fourth-quarter rally against Arizona to become bowl-eligible.  If Arizona had held on, or Oregon had gone into the BCS, BYU would be playing somebody from the WAC or the Mid-American Conference. Instead, the Cougars meet the Bears, who started 5-0, then went into a slump that included an overtime loss at Oregon before regrouping and pounding Stanford.  As 6-5 teams from the Mountain West Conference, Utah and BYU each got more than they bargained for in this bowl season. Especially the Utes, who went 4-4 in their league and somehow ended up playing a team that went 5-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Explain that.  "It's a great opportunity," Whittingham said.  That's one way of looking at it - the only way a coach can approach it. Realistically, the Utes could be in serious trouble here. It took something just short of a collision of planets to create this matchup, and it's not at all favorable to Utah.   There are certain risks involved with signing up for postseason play, and running into somebody like these guys is one of them. The student-athletes representing the Georgia Institute of Technology have Rambling  Wrecked their last two bowl opponents by an average score of 51-12.   Informed of that historical data, Whittingham responded, "If we keep 'em under 50, we're doing our job."   Actually, scoring those 12 points may be a bigger concern against a Tech defense that ranks 10th in the country.  Under coach Chan Gailey, the Yellow Jackets have mastered the art of underachieving just enough to play themselves into a lower-tier bowl game against an overmatched opponent. In 2003, they went 6-6 in the regular season with a loss to Duke, sending them to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, where they toppled Tulsa 52-10. Last season, they were 6-5 with a loss to North Carolina before hammering Syracuse 51-14 in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando.    This season? More of the same, although they improved to 7-4 with a No. 24 ranking. They were good enough to beat Auburn and Miami on the road and bad enough to lose to North Carolina State at home. Such inconsistency is partly a function of playing in a deep, high-quality league like the ACC. In any case, it keeps setting up Tech to succeed in the postseason.

Yet being sent to San Francisco required more intervening factors than usual. I mean, a few hours after Utah beat BYU, was anybody watching the Yellow Jackets upset Miami and thinking, "Hey, this might get them into the Emerald Bowl?"

Here's what had to happen: The Pac-10 had to fail to deliver a sixth bowl-eligible team, giving the ACC an opening. Virginia Tech had to lose the ACC championship game, sending the Hokies to the Gator Bowl and knocking Georgia Tech out of the Peach Bowl in favor of Miami. And two other ACC-affiliated bowls had to choose North Carolina State and Virginia, each with a 3-5 conference record, over the Yellow Jackets.  So the Utes finally got their wish about playing a worthy opponent, only they won't be taking the field in San Francisco with 49ers quarterback Alex Smith - although he may be ready to switch teams, right about then - and other members of the 2004 Utes.  Georgia Tech and Cal are simply too good to be playing in these two bowl games. Then again, at 6-5, the Utes and Cougars may have underachieved enough themselves to appear as harmless opponents who deserve to be overlooked.   They can only hope so.