TEMPE, Ariz. — No matter where you went in Tempe and Scottsdale last weekend, it was hard NOT to see Ute fans. The crimson shirts, hats and outerwear were prevalent all up and down University Avenue as well as around the Arizona State campus.

Pittsburgh fans were evident, too — in groups of three and four, while the Ute fans congregated in groups of 10s and 12s. You would have thought the University of Utah had just opened a Phoenix campus. (Maybe that's the next move into the BCS — just show up and take over the school.)

One Pittsburgh fan, Joe (who wouldn't give his last name) observed on New Year's Eve: "Numbers don't mean anything. We've been to bowl games and been outnumbered 4 to 1 and still walked away with the victory." OK, Joe, I remember BYU and Kansas State at the Cotton Bowl, but Pitt is no Kansas State and the Utes certainly look nothing like BYU. Nothing like confidence before the fact.

"But you — and the Big East — haven't seen anything like the Ute offense, nor experienced anything like the defensive pressure the Utes generate," I reminded him.

"We'll see," he said smugly. I wish I could have found him Saturday night AFTER the 35-7 win. But he was probably among the blue birds who migrated after the third quarter. If you tuned into the game and saw the U in the Utah end zone, then went east up 200 rows, that was me. We were so high up, we had to hire Sherpas to help us to our seats. At least I had the same view the press corps did — only from 180 degrees, and I was at eye-level with the Tostitos sign. When the fireworks exploded with each Utah score, I barely had to raise my gaze. We had an unobstructed view of the field, except for the glare from the landing lights on the planes coming in all night long .

The exodus out of Phoenix was equally red on Sunday. For every Arizona plate on the road on I-17 to Flagstaff or Highway 93 heading to Las Vegas, it seemed like there were four or five Utah plates working their way home. Lots of license-plate covers indicating they were Crimson Club members or U. alumni.

Even the Phoenix newscasters were warning Arizonans: "You don't want to be at Sky Harbor Airport," they intoned. "In addition to the regular holiday travel day and weekend celebrators, there are 25 charters leaving, carrying Fiesta Bowl fans." What they didn't say was how many of those were bound for Salt Lake City and the number for Pittsburgh — likely 20 to 1.

Even at the traffic backup at Hoover Dam, the sea of red didn't diminish. Utah gear was everywhere, on tourists lined up for the tour or simply on those trying to take a break and stretch their legs before getting back in the 5 mph crawl over the dam.

Even the staid Arizona Republic's Fiesta Bowl headline declared: "Ute Movement" and "Grateful Red," noting that if Ute fans accounted for 80 percent of the 73,000-plus tickets purchased for the game, that would make 58,400 Utah fans in the stands —10,000 more than the capacity of Rice-Eccles Stadium. "The only people left in Utah," one writer deadpanned, "are BYU fans."

Are Tempe and the Fiesta Bowl smiling? They're positively giddy — as giddy as the Utes and their fans.

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Jon Ringwood is a Deseret Morning News assistant sports editor.

E-MAIL: jringwood@desnews.com