Utah?

Scott, you must think you're in the middle of a bad dream. Just imagine, almighty Alabama of the almighty SEC ... would not even be champs of the Mountain West. I've seen Utah in person this season. They're a very good, not great team, but that wasn't an upset of the Tide. Will you implode completely when Ohio St beats Texas (of the almighty Big 12)? At the end of the season, the SEC and Big 12 are the two most overrated conferences in college football, and, yes, USC would beat either Fla or OU.

If you feel that Utah deserves the #1 rank then put them there. I would love to see the AP voting show wide variances from the BCS BS.

Maybe flyerz73, but could USC beat Utah??

Wolf Logic (couched in "Utah fan's case")

1) Utah "soundly beating" one-loss Alabama = Utah is awesome.
2) USC "soundly beating" one-loss Penn State = Penn State sucks donkey.

I've always been a fan Wolf, but your mission to antagonize USC fans is starting to overshadow your mission to provide inside knowledge of USC. When you were giving inside, objective nuggets on the team, nobody was better. Now, you're starting to turn into TMZ.

For the record, I am thoroughly impressed with Utah's win, and I think they should get strong consideration for the number one spot. So should USC.

Utah's win was damned impressive. Their first quarter onslaught was comparable to the Trojan's second quarter. We still need to see what Texas does and what the BCS NC game looks like. But any AP voter that votes for the winner of the BCS NC because they won the BCS is doing a disservice to the poll and to fans. And AP voter who votes for the winner of the BCS NC needs to explain why that winner is better than USC and why that winner is better than Utah. Seed the rest of the teams as you like.

It's hard to argue with someone putting Utah at #1. That's not to say there aren't good arguments to put other teams, including USC, ahead of Utah, but I don't think a voter putting Utah in that position is an idiot by any means.

I do think Alabama's piss poor showing in what should have been a friendly environment bodes poorly for the perceived dominance of the SEC. Georgia was a fraud all season. Florida lost at home to a team soundly worse than a healthy Oregon State squad. LSU was average and could easily have been in the bottom half of the PAC-10 and probably no higher than 4th.

Bottom line: Who cares? We won't be number 1. It doesn't matter.

The Donkey believes USC would beat Utah soundly.

The Donkey knows! And the sec and the little 12 aren't so great are they? It might be wise for the yahoo's east of the rockies to stay up past their bedtime once in awhile and watch a little Pac 10 football, they have thought little of us for a long time, but we can play with anyone.

While I will agree that Utah did have a very good season, anyone who watched the Utes with any kind of regularity knows they were not nearly as good as their record indicated, and could have just as easily been 10-3 or 9-4. Let's do the list:

Utah 25 Michigan 23 - In Michigan's first game under Rich Rodriguez, Utah barely escapes a matchup against what will come to be known as Michigan's worst team in half a century.

Utah 30 Air Force 23 - Utah scores 3 of the last 4 touchdowns, including one with :58 to go against a decent 8-5 Air Force team.

Utah 31 Oregon State 28 - Despite going up by 8 points with 2:18 to go, the Beavers (coming off an emotional game versus USC) manages to not only give up the game tying score + 2 point conversion, but also the game winning field goal in the final 1:29. (Utah also benefited from OSU's incomprehensible inability to convert extra points... OSU vs LSU anyone?)

Utah 13 New Mexico 10 - Utah beats the 4-8 Lobos (who Arizona was rightly blasted for losing to) by a whole 3 points.

Utah 13 TCU 10 - The Utes beat a very good Horned Frogs team by converting a 4th and 5 in the final minute, and by skillfully forcing the kicker to miss 2 quasi-chip shot field goals in the fourth quarter by doing nothing at all.

Utah 31 Alabama 17 - Utah beats the living cripe out of the wildly overrated Crimson Tide despite a slew of questionable calls against them. Somehow, Bama is still respected as a very good team, while Penn State is looked at as chumps after getting bludgeoned by SC.

So while Utah is a very good team, and could beat some other very good teams, their season wasn't quite as impressive as their record would seem to indicate.

Frankly, if you buy into the Utah argument, then by the same token if Oklahoma beats Florida the real NC should be Texas (assuming they beat tOSU).

In that scenario:

Florida lost to Oklahoma.
Oklahoma lost to Texas.

Now, take that a step further: If tOSU somehow manages to pull off an upset:

Florida lost to Oklahoma.
Oklahoma lost to Texas.
Texas lost to Ohio State.
Ohio State lost to USC.
USC lost to Oregon State.
Oregon State lost to Utah.

Utah should be #1 and Oregon State should be #2.

Obviously. ;-)

Dirk Diggler agrees with the DonKey that USC would beat Utah. However, he also believes that this is not a beauty contest. He believes that the Utah fan's arguments are compelling and he would also like to upset the BCS applecart so as to continue the groundswell for a playoff. He would vote Utah #1 if given a vote in an attempt to accomplish said.