Utah Utes football: Kyle Whittingham returns as voter in poll he bucked

SALT LAKE CITY — No harm, no foul.

Apparently that's how the USA Today coaches' poll views Kyle Whittingham's decision to buck the system following the 2008 season.

Ignoring an American Football Coaches Association agreement to have all voters place the winner of the BCS National Championship Game on top of their final ballots, Whittingham put Utah in the No. 1 slot instead of Florida. The Utes, after all, had just beaten Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and wound up as the nation's only undefeated team that season.

Losing his vote in the mutiny wasn't something Whittingham worried about.

"That's their call," he said at the time. "I have to look out for my players."

Whittingham wasn't a voter in 2009, but only because of a normal rotation of the 59 head coaches selected to participate in the weekly poll each year.

This season, he's back.

Whittingham cast his ballot in the preseason poll that was released Friday morning. The Utes cracked the top 25, tying West Virginia for 24th.

When asked if it was fun to be a voter again, Whittingham didn't really say.

"Fun?" he said. "It's my responsibility, so I do my duty."

It's a task Whittingham takes seriously.

"Anything you're asked to do and anything that has your name on it, you want to do a good job with it. So it's studied out as much can be. It's still not an exact science," he said. "I mean we don't get to see two-thirds of the teams that you get to vote for because you're busy and you're playing.

"So it's not entirely accurate, particularly early in the year. I've been a big proponent of not having these polls come out until week four or five of the season. To me, that makes more sense, but the system is what it is so you just go with it."

Such is the case with Utah's ranking and that of season-opening opponent Pittsburgh.

"It's about what I thought would happen," he said. "Pittsburgh, I believed would be in the top 20, and they're No. 15. That's evidence of what people's opinions are of them. They're a good football team."

The Utes and Panthers will square off Sept. 2 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

So, how did Whittingham rank them?

"That's my top-secret information," he said.