Utah Utes football: Forget BCS; U. is No. 1 for Utahns

The game was even broadcast in Mexico, where Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker was traveling. He said he watched it in Spanish.

"It's fabulous," he said of the win. "(The Utes) played extraordinary well. They proved they can not only win, but dominate a team that was considered the top team of the country for the last month. We're the best. We should get that No. 1 ranking."

At the U. Saturday, the campus was teeming with fans. The Campus Bookstore stayed busy during the afternoon selling memorabilia and sports gear to ecstatic students and alumni.

"I thought it was a great game. It is easily the biggest game for any sporting event in Utah," said Brian Lewis of Draper. "I think this game will change the way people think about the automatic berth in the BCS."

Lewis' daughter knew exactly where Utah should be ranked nationally when the question was asked.

"First," said 9-year-old Jillian Lewis. "Utah is the best team in the world. We should be first because we're the only undefeated team in college (football) right now."

Other fans echoed the Lewis family's sentiments, stressing that Utah deserved more respect than others were willing to give them.

"The win should help the team with recruiting, and it's a plus for the Mountain West Conference," said Eckhard Vik, of Sandy. "They should be ranked first or at least second, not any lower than that."

Vik described the game as exciting and unexpected because the analysts suggested Utah never had a chance.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also heartily agrees with a first-place ranking.

"Regardless of what happens in the Florida-Oklahoma game," he said, "the outcome will not change the fact that there is only one undefeated team in Division I college football: the University of Utah. For the second time in four years, the BCS-busting Utes have gone undefeated and yet uninvited to play for a national championship."

Hatch called the BCS "fatally flawed" and called for a change in the system.

The senator held hearings on the BCS in 2003 as chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing that the system is biased in favor of BCS teams, and disadvantages teams from non-BCS conferences.

But BCS woes aside, Utah officials are now figuring out how to properly celebrate. Becker said e-mails began flying between city and school officials the moment the team clinched the victory.

The team and coaches deserve a celebration, Young asserts, lauding his athletes for their scholarship and athleticism, and their coaches for requiring such excellence. He praised the team in person when he visited the locker room post-game.

"You've never seen a more happy, satisfied group of young men," he said. "They were as humble in victory as they were in defeat. They just go do their job with character and class. They could be zero and 13 and I'd still love them."

But it's so much nicer the other way around.

---

Contributing: Clayton Norlen

---

E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com