Utes not bitter about finishing season ranked No. 2

Considering how close they came to winning a national championship, the country's only undefeated team could have been bitter.

The Utah Utes, however, are looking at the bright side of things. They capped the most successful season in school history (13-0) with the program's highest ranking ever, finishing No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25 and No. 4 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

Utah received 16 first-place votes in the AP rankings and one from the coaches, the latter cast — as promised — by head coach Kyle Whittingham.

Florida and former Ute coach Urban Meyer topped both of the major polls after defeating Oklahoma, 24-14, in the BCS National Championship Game Thursday night in Miami.

"'National champions' is really a relative term. It's an opinion. Until there's a playoff system that's all it's going to be," Whittingham said in a teleconference Friday morning. "So we're really not caught up in that at this point and time."

There's really no true champion with the system that is in place, he added.

As such, the Utes aren't worrying about what might have been.

"We're looking at this season as a positive. There is a little bit of disappointment like we've talked about but we made huge inroads. Not only as a football program but as a conference," Whittingham said. "The Mountain West Conference, I believe, took a gigantic step forward this year — gaining the respectability of the nation and hopefully gaining an automatic bid from the BCS, as a conference, in the near future."

The positives, which include beating six bowl teams and four ranked opponents, simply outweigh the negatives for Utah.

"It was a terrific season. Our guys played exceptionally well for 13 straight games," Whittingham said. "And so we don't look at this season as a bitter pill to swallow. I think this a great, positive step for University of Utah football."

The Utes moved up from seventh to second in the final AP poll by moving ahead of USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Penn State. In the coaches poll, they climbed from seventh to fourth by surpassing Alabama, Penn State and Oklahoma.

Quarterback Brian Johnson, who was named the Most Outstanding Player in Utah's 31-17 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, said the high rankings are an honor and will hopefully change the perception of the non-BCS issue in the national media.