Is Utah Overrated? Responding to ESPN's BCS Buster Dismissals

The first bit about the polls is a quick note and not really worthy of its own post, but all I have to say is, do voters really pay attention! Let me rephrase that: Do the Coaches' poll voters pay attention?

There are two particularly odd voting patterns. The first involves Texas and Oklahoma. Texas defeated Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl and then three weeks later lose to Texas Tech on the road on a last-second play. Some voters put Oklahoma behind Texas—quite bizarre.

The similar thing happened between TCU and BYU. TCU smoked BYU at home 32-7 and three weeks later went on the road and lost to No. 10 Utah on a last second score, and voters dropped TCU behind BYU. This is why these SID polls, errr, coaches' polls are a bunch of garbage.

Honestly, how could a TCU team who dominated BYU less than a month drop behind after losing to a top 10 team on a last-minute drive? Enough of that, but there is more venting coming below.

ESPN is trying to cause a brouhaha within the non-BCS ranks in this article. The article talks about Utah, Boise State, and Ball State, all of whom are undefeated from a non-automatic qualifying conference (a mouthful there). Not sure what the author, Mark Schlabach, is really trying to prove here.

Below are some quotes that are way out there in my opinion.

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The Tar Heels and Panthers have done more to deserve a BCS berth than Ball State, Boise State, or Utah.

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Are you really sure there, Mark? I will keep the focus toward the Utes since the Mountain West is the main topic here. North Carolina does have the 63rd-best schedule compared to the Utes at 98, according to Phil Steele. However SOS is not the biggest factor in this, because shouldn’t record take into account who you beat?

North Carolina’s best wins are over then-ranked No. 24 UConn, who lost to Rutgers, squeaked by Temple, and played Hofstra. The other "quality" win is a good win over Georgia Tech at home, who was ranked No. 20 when they played.

If you look at Utah so far, they have defeated Oregon State, who beat then-number one USC while on a short week, and could win the Pac-10 and be in the Rose Bowl. They beat then-No. 12 TCU, who had the nation's number one defense. The Utes also beat an 8-2 Air Force team, and if they beat BYU, they will have beaten three teams who are ranked or were ranked in the year.

Those wins are more than what North Carolina or Pitt has done this year. All things being equal, Utah might not go undefeated in those leagues, but I am pretty confident they could go 11-1 or 10-2 in league play, and if those two were in the MWC, they would struggle to finish in the top three.

I could be biased, but look at what happened to Georgia, who squeaked by Kentucky who is unranked. They get the benefit for beating a team from a BCS league, albeit a bad team. Then the Utes squeak by TCU who was No. 12 at the time, and it's not a good win because TCU is from the MWC.

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The Utes have gotten a ton of mileage from their 25-23 upset of Michigan in the not-so-Big House in their Aug. 30 opener.

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I would like to know who really thought the Michigan game was an upset, and who was praising the Utes for beating a Michigan team people knew would be bad—maybe not three wins bad, but bad.

This next quote is downright pathetic, and again, I claim this ESPN writer just wants the shock effect.

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The Razorbacks, sitting at the bottom of the SEC West, are probably good enough to beat Ball State, Boise State, and Utah, too.

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Now this is just downright arrogance, stupidity, or a reaction line. If Mr. Schlabach did any research, he would have noticed that Wyoming, probably the worst team in the MWC, went to Tennessee and defeated the Vols just last week.

Arkansas right now is at 4-6 with their best win over Tulsa, and their other wins are against an Auburn team that is inept on offense, and Louisiana-Monroe, and Western Illinois.

Most of the other points can actually be made in an argument, but this last one is plain-out crazy and just way out there and has very little validity in that comment.

Another blogger has a similar write-up to this over at BlockU, a very good read on this same topic, but it is about an article written over at SI.com.