Academic

The Utah Runnin' Utes Deserve the National Championship

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

I am no fan of the University of Utah's Runnin' Utes, but they deserve to be voted College Football National Champions after handling Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and completing an undefeated season.

13-0.

No other team in the country can claim that. And that includes wins over four Top 25 teams -- Oregon State, TCU, BYU, and Alabama -- plus road victories against Air Force and Michigan.

Impressive. Especially the way that Utah abused Alabama. Remember that this is the Alabama team that was ranked #1 for the last four weeks of the season until narrowly losing to Florida in the SEC championship game. Yes, Alabama was missing one player -- All-American tackle Andre Smith -- but last time I checked, Andre doesn't play defense, and Utah's offense mystified Alabama's defense for most of the night. Besides, as Barry Switzer graciously reminded us, Alabama wouldn't even recruit any of Utah's players out of high school, so please shelve the argument that this was a depth-of-talent loss.

As readers of The Conglomerate know, my preference would be to allow Utah to settle this in a playoff, but that is not an option, so sportwriters should have the courage to do the right thing and award the AP national championship to Utah.

UPDATE: It appears that I am not alone. Here are the current poll results on ESPN:

In a presidential election, that would be a landslide for the Utes. Florida is close enough that it may require a recount.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on January 03, 2009 (boomark / email).