Utah coach Kyle Whittingham: no true national champion without a playoff

January 9, 1:06 PMUtah Sports ExaminerBrian Shaw

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Kyle Whittingham (AP/J. Pat Carter), Urban Meyer (AP/Alex Brandon)

How would you feel if your team did everything asked, won every game this season, defeated six bowl teams, destroyed No. 4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and watched tens of thousands of Crimson Tide fans stream out the door of the game you won before being told your team wasn’t good enough?

Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham had to answer that Friday morning at a teleconference hours after the final AP poll was released and his Utes finished No. 2, behind BCS national champion and former Ute coach Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators. Talk about disheartening. “There really is no hard and fast true champion with the system that is in place,” Whittingham said.

Instead of attacking everyone, Whittingham took the high road that Boise State coach Chris Peterson did hours after stunning Oklahoma in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl, watching the collective BCS fogeys keel over in their ridiculous sports coats, a sign of the apocalypse and still not voting his Broncos No. 1.

No, Whittingham didn’t even attack his former boss, Meyer. Didn't your dad ever teach you to never burn a bridge? Whittingham's did, even though Meyer, at Utah for a two whopping years, had an opportunity to say plenty about Utah's season on a national stage after beating Oklahoma last night in the 2009 version of “Let’s Make A Deal,“ or the BCS National Championship in Miami and said…nothing. So much for being a BCS-buster.

So on this day, just hours after Utah got the bad news, there would be no joy in Uteville, no Urban-lou-Who coming to the rescue of a team that had proven everything it needed to (he did the next day, however, after all the confetti and Gatorade had landed in his lap). No, in my mind, as soon as that first big Notre Dame jet landed years ago at the Million Air terminal in Salt Lake City, there would be no BCS title, not ever, in Uteville.

But Whittingham wouldn’t listen. What does he know about losing anyway? He only played at BYU, watching his Cougar teams destroy the younger, smaller Utes year after year in the 1980’s, a streak that still gives me nightmares. Then after his Ute-killing days ended, Utah coach Ron McBride gave him a chance as a graduate assistant and the rest…seriously, folks, it’s history.

The truth? McBride was the architect of the Ute program, not Meyer. Urban was in here long enough for a cup of coffee, basked in the glow of the players McBride recruited, then left the first chance he got. Whittingham knows the truth because he lived in it, studied film for hours in it, and lived through it all: the beatings, the trips to obscure, non-existent bowls starring NFL names like Fu’Amatu-Ma’Afala, Dyson and Smith (Steve, not Alex) before finally, FINALLY making the big-time 2004 Fiesta Bowl where Utah still didn’t get respect, annihilating a severely overmatched Pittburgh team.

This year, the Utes finally had the chance to prove to everybody the Mountain West Conference was as good as any other conference and they did. In the end, it hardly mattered, for the biggest gleaming piece of hardware was instead held aloft by a Florida team with one loss, a fast-talking coach and a happy ending brought to you by a hulk of a winning quarterback. On the podium they had their hats on straight and talked different than the others did. It’s sad but that’s the way it is.

"We congratulate him (Meyer) and he's done a great job," Whittingham said.

And here’s the most irritating part of it all: One coach (Whittingham) ranked Utah No. 1 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll, so if you thought the BCS was the only instigator of this sham of a system you’re wrong. Apparently the coaches who didn’t vote Utah No. 1 do it too. (They voted the Utes No. 4.)

So what does Whittingham make of this whole thing, now that the BCS is considering implementing a four-year review of all FBS conferences? “We’re (incrementally) gaining respect. I was a little disappointed and we were disappointed we were ranked No. 4 in the coaches poll. Until we get the playoffs implemented this is the way it’s gonna be.”

Actually, instead of acting like a crybaby, he still acts like his team could play another game or two. “We feel like we can play with anybody in the country,” Whittingham said. “We didn’t have a chance to prove it. We don’t look at this season as a bitter pill to swallow and look at our undefeated season as a success.”

Any advice for any other BCS-buster looking to become national champion next year? “You know, where we didn’t start the season ranked was our undoing,“ Whittingham said. “You need to start the season in the Top 15 and run the table. Then you might have a chance at finishing the season No. 1.”