For Utes, Emerald Bowl is just right

SAN FRANCISCO — It will be a lower-key event than last year, when the Utes play in today's Emerald Bowl. No parade, no street festival and no New Year's Day TV coverage.

There won't even be a football field, if you want to get technical.

Because the game is at SBC Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, it will be played on a converted baseball field.

So how they gonna get all those players in the dugouts anyway?

Yet if you ask the players and coaches from Utah, they're OK with the situation. It doesn't have to be the Fiesta Bowl every year.

It isn't the Liberty or Las Vegas bowl, either, which is good news for Ute coach Kyle Whittingham.

"This beats the heck out of Memphis, Tenn., and the best place to see Las Vegas is in your rearview mirror," he said Tuesday.

"I guess I shouldn't say that, but . . . "

But the Las Vegas Bowl is still steamed about Utah's meager Christmas Day crowd in 2001 and made no secret it wanted BYU rather than Utah at this year's event. In the Las Vegas Bowl's defense, the plan worked. This year's game sold out. Still, with the Vegas Bowl hosting the conference champion beginning next year, there will be some mending to do if the Utes win the title.

At the moment, none of that matters. Vegas got its sellout and the Utes got a bowl they appreciate. Beyond that, they're in a game this year that is truthfully more their size. The Fiesta Bowl was a once-in-a-generation (millennium?) opportunity. It was a lot like that $95,000 set of intricately carved ivory tusks at the Canton Bazaar in Chinatown — beautiful but clearly not an everyday purchase.

The Liberty Bowl in Memphis was difficult to get to, dreary and sometimes downright cold. Las Vegas is the home of a conference opponent. For a Utah team that couldn't get off the ground until its final game, the Emerald Bowl is just right.

"I look at last year," said center Jesse Boone, "and we would just go through the motions. We just kinda showed up and it wasn't even a ballgame — maybe for a half. This year we had to fight and scratch every inch of the way and we're playing football games, back and forth, and you win some and you lose some. That's football and we're having a good time. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Not even another BCS bowl? Of course he would.