NCAA Football

Undefeated and Maybe Unforgettable

Posted Jan 03, 2009 8:00AM By Ray Holloman (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Alabama, Utah

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Before the confetti landed on the Superdome turf or the first post-game Hurricane could be recycled onto Bourbon Street -- think Kenyatta Jones not Al Gore -- Utah's 31-17 Sugar Bowl upset over Alabama was cast as a story of what the Utes don't have.

Utah will finish the season without a loss. And they will finish without a shot at the national championship, not so much as a bit part in deciding the champion, or a souvenir box of popcorn from the game or even an autograph from whatever network star FOX promotes at halftime.

Utah will have none of these.

But Friday night, the Utes earned something even better.

They earned a title someone other their alumni might remember. They claimed a victory more parable than win.

National championships are won every year, and most amount to little more than a good looking banner, a funny looking trophy and, if you're lucky, might eventually win you a plate of wings on trivia night. They're great to win, but generally wind up as another pretty page in a media guide. Rival BYU won the national title in 1984, but take a poll of just how many people know that tidbit and how many remember which quarterback completed a Hail Mary to beat Miami that same season.

Go ahead, we'll wait.

And somewhere on the list, tucked behind the way George Mason's Final Four run and Boise State's Fiesta Bowl win in 2006 are already overshadowing Florida's championships, is Utah's Sugar Bowl victory.

In the face of the BCS and the mighty SEC, whose dominance in BCS Bowls seemed so certain a law of nature that you'd be forgiven for assuming Newton first wrote it somewhere, Utah earned the kind of win that turns a game into a metaphor.

It's not a story of talent, though Utah certainly has that – even Rod Marinelli could've coached a few wins out of this group – but a story of belief.

From the start, the Sugar Bowl was the battle between one team ready to storm an enemy beachhead and another that looked like it was waiting for the dentist to usher them in from the waiting room.

Sure, there are excuses for Alabama's performance, maybe even one for every time John Parker Wilson was flattened like a beer can in a car crusher. The Tide were without their best player, offensive tackle Andre Smith, whom coach Nick Saban suspended before the game. The city block of a lineman put the ornery in the Tide line and could probably open a hole wide enough through the Mississippi to get Parker from one side to the other without getting wet. Without him, and backup Mike Johnson, who left the game injured in the first quarter, and with Utah stacking eight defenders in the box every play, the Tide collapsed like build-it-yourself furniture.

By the time Utah was done with him, his back probably had enough dimples from Ute cleats that you could've driven him down the fairway.

Credit that to Utah.

Just don't call them a Cinderella team, no matter how memorable their victory. Cinderella caught the eye of a prince with a little luck and a little help from wardrobe. This team did it ugly, getting downright mean enough they should've all been wearing a three-day beard, bowling shirts and sporting tattoos of flaming skulls.

That is not new. They had the guts to schedule Michigan in the Big House well before anyone knew what kind of mismatch that would be. They rallied past Oregon State earlier this season and held off TCU with another bit of late magic from quarterback Brian Johnson. And when they needed to salt away the Sugar Bowl in the fourth quarter against a Tide defense that, until they met the Utes, played like they were armed with baseball bats, they put their tugboat of a running back Matt Asiata under center and jammed it into the Alabama line.

The Tide knew what was coming. Deep down they probably knew they couldn't stop it.

If you didn't know how good this Utah team was beforehand, you probably weren't alone. Had you asked anyone in New Orleans if Johnson was a football player or a senator before the game, you might've gotten a look like you just asked them to do long division in their head. But that's your fault.

And it just makes Utah's win all the more appealing. That's why you'll remember it. Because you doubted them. Ruled them out. Made it a foregone conclusion.

And they proved you wrong. Utah reaffirmed the basic lessons of sports, that if you just work hard enough, the area between the lines is the world's only meritocracy, and for that they'll be remembered. Everyone likes a national champion, but everyone loves a good underdog story.

So yeah, Utah, this is a story of what you don't get. Forgotten.

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