I just read Rick Reilly's most recent Life of Reilly column on ESPN.com, and I completely agree with him. His argument is that Utah should be this year's college football national champions, regardless of the outcome of tonight's BCS Championship game.
Now I don't follow college football very closely, and I understand the arguments about Utah being in a "weaker conference" than the other contenders for the national championship. Still, the Mountain West this year was pretty tough. As Reilly points out, Utah defeated four ranked teams this year. They also absolutely clobbered Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. No one else. NO ONE ELSE went undefeated. I know that sometimes there are college teams that go undefeated in the regular season and people think they're worthy of a BCS title game appearance, and then they get beat in a different BCS bowl because even though they were undefeated, their competition had been so-so (I think I'm remembering a recent Hawaii team... but again, I don't really follow college football). That wasn't the case with Utah this year. And even if it was, it irritates me to think that you've got a team full of kids who didn't lose once. NOT ONCE. And still they'll end the season ranked third or fourth or fifth. What more can you ask of the kids on that team? If you win every game you play and still don't have a shot at a national title, I'm not a big fan of the system. You can argue all you want on some abstract grounds that Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, USC, and others are better football teams, and that they might beat Utah... but that argument just doesn't hold enough water with me. Why? Because all of those teams -- wait for it -- LOST. Maybe they lost to a great team. Maybe they lost a close one. Maybe they shouldn't have lost except for that one crappy play. But they lost. Utah didn't. Crown 'em.
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