Copyright Salt Lake Tribune
The progression — or regression — of a college football team like the Utah Utes is compelling theatre. In their case, unlike some outfits when they stumble into adversity, it’s almost all progression. Some teams disintegrate after a couple of losses. They fight among themselves. They cast blame. They find excuses. They whine like babies. They get their daubers down and once they are, their season is cooked. Some, on the other hand, wake up and push to new heights. The Utes are fully awake, and have pushed — and are pushing — forward and upward. Barring wicked injuries, it could be reasonably expected that Utah will win the rest of its regular-season games. That’s exactly what the Utes, according to what Devon Dampier said on Saturday night, after they did away with the Cincinnati Bearcats, a team heretofore undefeated in Big 12 play, intend to do. He said the Utes know they have to win out to have any chance at making the Big 12 championship game. He added that’s what they are working to do. To make that happen, other teams have to cooperate, and by cooperate, we mean … lose. BYU is undefeated, Texas Tech has just one loss. Both of those teams beat the Utes. Cincinnati has lost once. Houston has two league losses, like Utah. BYU next plays Texas Tech and eventually will face Cincinnati, both of those games are on the road. Utah plays Baylor, Kansas State and Kansas, all winnable games. The technicalities of who will win, who will lose, what exactly has to happen for each of the contenders, according to their individual circumstances, to qualify for the CCG in Arlington is not really the point here. What is the point is a compliment to the way Utah has fired back after its earlier troubles. Kyle Whittingham’s teams have done that before, more recently in the old Pac-12, where the Utes made a couple of Rose Bowls. Last season, after starting strong, they hit the skids in the middle of the season and never could regain proper control. They spun out and lost out. This feels different. Utah took a punch to the kneecaps when it dropped its game against the Cougars at LaVell’s Place. The Utes could have hobbled away, could have ducked out down a back alley and completely disappeared after so much hubbub and hoopla surrounded that game. BYU beat them for the third straight time and might have hurt their feelings in the process. The Cougars hurt them all right, but did not put them away. The manner in which Utah has fought back, absolutely thumping Colorado, winning by 47 points, and brushing away a Big 12 contender in the Bearcats, that victory taken by 31 points, is impressive. It’s not just impressive, it’s dangerous for other conference teams, the best of them. If Utah wins out — “One game at a time,” as Dampier said — and fortune smiles on it as other teams vying to qualify for the championship game beat up on each other, if the Utes find a way in, after and if their coming business is appropriately done, no opponent, not even the teams that beat the Utes earlier, should or would feel overly comfortable playing Utah again. Not with the way the Utes have responded to and utterly shed the disappointment of defeat. In truth, that seems to have hardened the steel within them. Their domination of league opponents might continue, and even if it doesn’t and Utah simply finds a way to continue winning, using its potent offense, especially on the ground, and its rugged defense, playing football defined by determination, watching the way the Utes have overcome said adversity speaks to the character of their program. Sure, nobody’s handing out Otter Pops at season’s end, this whole thing is about stone-cold winning. This isn’t meant to sound condescending. The Utes’ losses are not to be excused. But their willingness to rediscover themselves and create a force to be feared is admirable, indeed.
