Can Utes finish Pac-12 run with a bang?
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Wouldn’t you know it. Utah took years to claw its way to the top of the Pac-12 and establish itself as a perennial powerhouse in the league, and now the Pac-12 Conference is going under like the Titanic and the passengers are jumping over the side. Who knew it was the league and not the newcomer Utes that couldn’t raise their game?
“We want to get in there and win and win right away. We have no reason to believe that we can’t.” — Utah AD Mark Harlan on joining the Big 12 next season
Since joining the conference in 2011, the Utes have shoved aside the traditional powers to win the Pac-12 twice, which included two trips to the Rose Bowl and wins over USC and Oregon and the rest of them along the way. The only things the Utes didn’t accomplish in their recent hot streak were win bowl games (four losses in their last four bowl appearances) and a berth in the national playoff. They’ve finished 12th and 10th, respectively, in the final polls the last two seasons.
Like seven other schools rushing for the exits, the Utes are about to embark on a season-long goodbye tour of the Pac-12 — RIP — just when they were having their way with the place. After 11 seasons in the Pac-12, the Utes are changing addresses again, this time to the Big 12, where they will be reunited with their buddies from BYU (they just can’t get away from one another, and the Utes’ refusal to play the Cougs is a thing of the past, thankfully).
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Someday, someone will tell their kids that the Utes were the Pac-12 champions, and they’ll ask, “What’s a Pac-12?” The “Conference of Champions” — a boastful marketing line that has morphed into snark — will eventually be relegated to the junk pile of other conferences that have fallen hard or disappeared: the Western Athletic Conference, the Big East Conference, the Mountain States Conference, the Southwest Conference, etc., etc.
When the Utes transitioned from the Mountain West Conference to the Pac-12 in 2011, it was a big jump from a Group of Five conference to a Power Five conference. After winning 33 games the previous three years, the Utes took their lumps in the new league, winning 18 games the next three years, including consecutive 5-7 seasons. They raised their game, upgrading facilities, recruiting, (ticket prices), etc., and eventually thrived.
Anyway, the transition to a new conference should be different this time around; it’s a lateral move at best. As athletic director Mark Harlan put it recently, “We want to get in there and win and win right away. We have no reason to believe that we can’t.”
That certainly should be the case — it won’t be necessary this time to go through a painful upgrade process to play in the Big 12 (well, other than raising ticket prices) — but that’s getting ahead of things. There’s that little business of taking one more lap through the Pac-12 (soon to be the Pac-4, if that). That adds a little more intrigue for the upcoming season.
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The Utes undoubtedly want to continue the momentum that has carried them to 40 wins in the last four complete seasons (not counting the 2020 pandemic-shortened season), and there’s no reason they shouldn’t, considering their 14 returning starters, the portal picks, their 32-9 conference record since 2018 and the usual steadying influence of head coach Kyle Whittingham.
The Utes are ranked 14th in the national preseason poll. It’s relatively meaningless, but it should be noted that 10 of the top 15 teams in the 2022 preseason poll were still standing in the final poll, including Utah.
The Utes will be seeking their third-consecutive Pac-12 championship, something that no team has accomplished since the creation of a conference championship game the year that Utah joined the league. In the 108-year history of the conference, the three-peat has been accomplished seven times — Oregon (2009-11), USC (2002-08), Washington (1990-92), USC (1966-69), USC (1943-45), UCLA (1953-55) and Cal (1920-23). A third championship for Utah would be a nice way to close the door on the Pac-12 chapter and shut out the lights as they leave.
