Liberty coaches pay tribute

Utah coach Urban Meyer and Southern Mississippi coach Jeff Bower visited Memphis on Monday. They traveled to Tennessee for a press conference and other activities to herald their teams' participation in the 45th annual Liberty Bowl on New Year's Eve.

Meyer praised the hospitality and predicted "it's going to be a great bowl."

Though neither the Utes (9-2) nor Golden Eagles (9-3) are ranked in the top 25, each earned invitations by winning outright league titles.

"You work 364 days a year to have an opportunity to represent your conference as a champion — to come to Memphis to play the champion from the Mountain West," Bower said. "The Southern Miss team, fans and alumni are looking forward to it."

Ditto for the Utes.

"At the beginning of the season this was the prize, and make no mistake about it, the University of Utah, Salt Lake City and a lot of Utah alums are going to come here and support their football team," Meyer said. "There was no doubt this was the bowl game you want to be at. This is our bowl game, this is why you got up every morning and worked as hard as we did as a football team."

Utah, which claimed its first outright title since 1957, has never met the Conference USA champion Golden Eagles. That, however, doesn't mean the teams are complete strangers to one another.

"I already cheated a little bit and took a look at our opponent. I'm an offensive-minded coach, and you're going to see a great football game," Meyer said. "Our opponent is a fantastic defensive football team, very athletic, and they're playing their best football of the season at this point in time."

After a 3-3 start, the Golden Eagles reeled off six straight victories. They clinched a share of the conference title by upending Texas Christian's BCS hopes with a 40-28 victory over the Horned Frogs on Nov. 20. Nine days later, Southern Miss won the crown outright with a season-ending 38-21 triumph over East Carolina.

Utah also enjoyed a noteworthy finish. The Utes put an end to BYU's NCAA-record, 361-game scoring streak with a 3-0 victory in Provo on Nov. 22. It capped the most successful first-year coaching job in Utah football history.

"I've been keeping up with Urban ever since he went to Bowling Green and the job he did there," Bower said. "And to go to the University of Utah and to go 9-2 in the first year and outright win the championship is quite impressive."