I love ya man, but wtf? BTW, I am a WSU Cougar, not a Ute. However, I hate it when sports writers get it wrong. I guess its the lawyer in me. More often than not sports writers are so enamored with the purported “major conferences” that they believe these are the only football conferences with real “strength of schedule.” First, the Mountain West Football Conference is clearly a tougher conference than say the ACC or Big East. One could even argue that the the Mountain West was better than the Big Ten and PAC 10 this year ( Mountain West teams beat PAC 10 teams in five (5) out of six (6) games during the regular season.)

Utah has played a schedule that rivals any of the alleged Big Conferences schedules. Don’t believe me? Lets look at the evidence. You have to love evidence, I wish the media would look at the evidence once in a while instead of gloss over it. Even more, outside of the world of sports writing, I wish the media would actually be intellectually honest in its reporting instead of pushing a political agenda. Sorry, I digress…

Utah played a Big Ten Conference opponent on the road. Yes, Michigan went 3-9 this season, but any road game to a Big Conference deserves credit. Michigan also was not expected to be this bad when Utah scheduled them.

Utah also faced and beat the No. 3 Pac-10 team. The Utes faced Oregon State at home and beat them.

As for the rest of Utah’s schedule, they played five teams that are bowl-bound in Air Force, Oregon State, Colorado State, TCU, and BYU. According to the latest AP Poll, TCU is No. 11, BYU is No. 17, and Oregon State is No. 24. Oregon State, as I remember, beat USC.

How does Utah’s schedule compare to Florida and Oklahoma?

Florida went 12-1. Loosing to Ole Miss, who laid a spanking on Texas Tech. They played several teams heading to bowl games, but most were in-conference opponents. Since Florida plays in a big conference, they will have more teams in their conference heading to bowl games.

In their out-of-conference schedule, Florida played Hawaii, Miami (FL), and Florida State who are all bowl-bound. Florida also played I-AA Citadel, so they should be knocked down a little for this win.

As for Oklahoma, they also went 12-1 and played several in-conference teams headed to bowls, including Texas and Texas Tech, who got spanked by Ole Miss.

Oklahoma’s non-conference schedule included Cincinnati and TCU, who are bowl-bound. They also went on the road to Washington, who is the worst team in the Pac-10 and played I-AA Chattanooga.

Basically, Utah took a chance with their non-conference schedule and was the only team of the three to go undefeated. If someone from a self-described Big Conference went undefeated, they would automatically be placed in the National Championship Game. Is this fair? No, its BS!

Let’s take a look at Cincinnati, and if they went 13-0. Their non-conference opponents were Eastern Kentucky, at Oklahoma, Miami (OH), Akron, and at Hawaii. Only Miami and Akron are not going to bowl games.

As for the rest of the BCS contenders, how does Utah’s schedule compare? They out-do several of the other BCS bowl opponents.

USC played Virginia on the road, and Ohio State and Notre Dame at home.

The rest of the teams only had one arguably tough non-conference game.

Penn State played at Syracuse. Ohio State played at USC. Virginia Tech played at Nebraska. Texas played Arkansas at home. Alabama played at Clemson.

Basically, everyone playing in the BCS has decent schedules, but Utah went above and beyond what everyone else did. They knew they needed to because of what some writer’s perceive as their so-called weaker conference schedule.

If you’re not in a BCS Conference, you don’t have a chance to go to the National Championship Game. What more does a school like Utah have to do to get some credibility. Maybe, respect would come if they had won all their prior BCS Bowl Games? Oh ya, they already did that.

Only 65 teams are actually competing for the National Championship. Its BS, its anti-American, anti-college athletics, and anti-competition. What if the NCAA Tourney was conducted in the same way. See ya.. Gonzaga, UNLV, Davidson, Xavier, Winthrop, Memphis, George Mason, etc. People would be screaming bloody murder. How is it acceptable in college football? I am a PAC 10 guy. Although my school sucked arse this year with one of the worst records in the country, every year I take comfort in the fact that if my team wins its conference we go to a BCS bowl and quite possibly a national championship. Utah fans do not have that luxury.

You argue that the BCS is broken. I argue that it worked in exactly the way it was designed to work. Its designed to make sure the self-described big dawgs are the only teams playing in the big dance. It worked perfectly in this regard. Two one loss teams playing for the national title when Utah is undefeated. Would we stop the Arizona Cardinals from playing in the Superbowl simply because its conference is not as strong as the New England Patriots? No we wouldn’t. The BCS is a freaking tragedy. The only way to correct it, the only way to fix it, is for the AP to give the National Championship to Utah. This is the only way to send a clear message to the BCS. I hope the AP will finally do the right thing and give Utah the title.