;-)

20 years?

OK, well, you don’t know much about Utah football sonny, let me enlighten you some.

Utah has had an argument regarding its team since 1972—what were we to do, become more competitive or just let football go, wither, or grow organically or even drop to IIA so we could be competitive at some level (that was a serious idea by the way). Much of this dialogue was carried out by ideas and issues raised by old John Mooney of the Salt Lake Tribune (a man I was fortunate to meet and talk Utah football with). Utah, has been rebuilding since that time or before (since we already were soured on our inability to compete with Arizona State), but 1972 started the really critical soul searching because at that point Utah started to get humiliated by BYU, Arizona State, and Arizona. To that point we had the upper hand head to head with AZ and owned BYU. But at that point we started losing more regularly to all three (AZ was considered the better team by far in 1972 and Utah’s win is one of its biggest all time as it was considered a huge upset). In 1973-1977, Arizona crushed us—home and away, crushed. Of course, BYU owned us for that first 20 year period, going 18-2 against us. That was when we were rebuilding. Everyone conveniently says "Well, Ron McBride started rebuilding us . . .’ no, that is when we became consistently more competitive, not when we were trying desperately to rebuild. Every new coach we had the Utes expressed the desire to have along term, stable, power team. Never happened until Meyer, by the way, and that was for two years. Whittingham? Has one great and one good year and three underachieving ones. Think about that.

From 1972 to the present, with Utah playing in the WAC and MWC, Utah has a decent 55% winning record. Arizona, playing in the WAC through 1977 and then the PAC-10 has had the same winning percentage, 55%. Both teams have had periods of rebuilding, both have had decent coaches and a few good and two great seasons each. I noticed that Larry Smith’s teams are left out of consideration by you?

Now, I know that this translates into Utah being the better team to us Utes, but no, it doesn’t. That’s because Arizona played in a conference that no one in the entire nation would say was not vastly superior qualitatively to Utah’s.

Also, how long has the BCS been in business? And it’s always been exactly the same? Nope. That’s an arbitrary cutoff as well because Arizona, as PAC-10 champs, would have been a BCS bowl team and at 12-1 if played last year would have been another (they waxed Miami and Nebraska those two years). So, they both have two quality Bowl wins—Arizona’s being the more difficult tests by far since their opponents were both in their prime at the time.

Besides the two great years for both teams, they’ve each had a few good ones. Utah has a more gaudy winning percentage recently, again playing in the inferior conference. But using your measure, we dropped off so far after Meyer left that really, what kind of team are we? We’ve had one great year since Urban left 1. Arizona had two great years with mediocrity and a couple decent ones around them. So? Utah’s the better team why? Because we pad our stats with Wyoming and UNLV? Has either of those teams ever been as good as Washington State once was? Has Utah ever had a single season where our schedule was as tough as Arizona’s? Maybe, probably not though. Not week in week out. Their non conference foes typically include two tough teams, teams like Georgia Tech, Illinois, Iowa, Notre Dame, Alabama . . .every year two quality teams besides the PAC-10 schedule. Utah only recently tried to get more than one decent team on board and Iowa State isn’t the program those others are. When Utah played a single good team (Ohio State, Tennessee, Nebraska) we spent the off season giddy with excitement. Arizona was playing 4-6 such teams a year. That’s why they think we’re silly.

If Arizona wasn’t any good at the time I indicate it means what? Utah’s signal rebuilding year under McBride is worthless, right? I mean, using your argument, we still sucked then while I considered it a great year and until recently many Utes felt we’d never again have a team that good in our lifetimes—think about that.

The more instructive comparison is how will Utah translate into the PAC-10?

Well, in 1977 the Arizona schools were considered so good compared to their WAC brethren that it was assumed Arizona State, which had a terrific team, would compete immediately for the title and might dominate the PAC-10 from then on out! Arizona, it was assumed, would be in the top tier as well.

So, you kids go on about the last few years, but when we decided to rebuild Arizona was killing us and they left with them and us knowing they were vastly superior and that program will look down its nose at us because they have been in the tougher conference, they’ve been bloodied week in and week out. This during times when Utah played Texas El Paso which one Playboy college guide called “one of the better high school teams if they were not in Texas.”

So, yes:

You guys need to breathe a little, get over Utah’s couple recent good years. The sooner you get over them, the better. Relax, breathe in, breathe out, it’s going to be a long journey, it takes decades—I know. Quick turnarounds are not long term poower builders—ask North Carolina, Washington State, Colorado, etc. And if we are competitive in the PAC-10 for the next ten years, we’ll have a great program—for that period. It will go around though, few teams have the continued success of twenty-40 years like Michigan has had at times. So give it some time, understand it isn’t hatred when people look down on your beloved Utes. We’re not that good yet—not every week. Success in the WAC and MWC aren’t success in the real world of college football. This is only our next painful step, we’re still building a team, ask a guy who’s been there, someone like Arizona.

I do think Utah’s early history (1920s-50s) probably trumps most western schools.

But the modern era of college football (roughly 1960-2010) was not kind to the Utes early on. Sure, they had some decent teams in the 60s – but overall, they weren’t nearly as good as they were prior to the 60s.

Even so, outside of the Lovat years, Utah was generally at worst, mediocre.