This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

TEMPE, Ariz. - The Lame Duck Bowl, as it turned out, was more than just lame. It was wounded, too.

Only in the best sense for Utah's Utes.

And for Florida's Gators.

They - the Utes, I mean - won, 35-7.

For Pittsburgh?

Quack. Quack. Quack.

Splat.

"This team prepared to win," said a dour-and-departing Walt Harris, Pitt's coach-once-removed to Stanford. "We got behind, and then, it was real tough."

Everybody knew the guys with their bags packed would take powerful parts, for better or worse, in the way this whole Fiesta Bowl thing played out, probably even before it played out. Pitt, from the jump, seemed less talented and less driven.

There was no hiding, least of all from the players, the fact that Urban Meyer and many assistant coaches were headed for what they presume to be a better setting in Gainesville, Fla. Other key assistants flew the coop for UNLV. Harris and his posse were off to Palo Alto.

Question was, where were the players, the guys who current leadership on both sidelines no longer wanted to coach, off to?

Moreover, which of the football orphans would find motivation to play, not for the mercenaries moving on and cashing in, but rather, for themselves?

The answer came fast and furious.

Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah.

One for each of the Utes' touchdowns.

All week long, those same Utes talked a good game. And in the Fiesta, they played one.

They punctuated most of their drives with TDs, almost from the start. Utah scored touchdowns in each of the first two quarters, and then blew up for 21 points in the third. Quarterback Alex Smith threw for 328 yards and four scores, including 15 completions to Paris Warren, who gained 198 yards and scored twice.

"They are a very good, very explosive team," Harris said. "They're good at what they do. And they did their thing."

By the closing minute of the third quarter, when Smith passed to Steve Savoy, who pitched the ball to Warren, who scampered 18 yards for one more Ute TD, Pitt was done.

And the Utes were just showing off.

A national television audience was getting an eyeful of what Utah had done all season: Dominate its opponent. Saturday night, the Ute defense pummeled Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko, sacking him nine times. It allowed just 17 yards rushing in 30 attempts. Offensively, Utah gained 467 yards to Pitt's 268.

There must have been a lot of grins in Gainesville, where Gator fans love offensive football and Meyer already has set up shop for his new gig.

Good for them. Good for him.

But Utah's players deserved the spotlight on this night.

"What a great effort by our guys," Meyer correctly said.

Despite being a heavy favorite to beat the Panthers, the Utes knew full well that they represented more than just themselves in these unprecedented circumstances. They may not have been Meyer's team, but they weren't just Utah's team, either.

Saturday night, they were every non-BCS team's team.

Every fan from every school on the outside looking in had to be hoping the Utes would stick it to the team that represented the cartel that normally shuts them out from its annual postseason party and payday.

Pitt, from the Big East, just happened to be the pigeon.

If that put added pressure on Utah, it never showed.

"Everybody took care of business," said Savoy. "Everybody did his job."

The Utes are a team that attained perfection by way of cliche. All season, they took it one game at a time. They prepared for the immediate matter at hand, never looking past the mark, even though the comprehensive ramifications grew heady. They could have been playing the Holy Sisters of Mercy - and some national skeptics insisted they did - and it wouldn't have unlocked their concentration.

None of the distractions leading up to the Fiesta Bowl seemed to unnerve them. Just a few days ago, defensive leader Sione Pouha called the tornado that ripped through Utah's coaching staff a "catastrophe," and yet, in his next sentence, he said the Utes' practice that afternoon had been one of the best of the year.

Focus, focus, focus.

No hocus-pocus.

"We don't believe so much in luck," Pouha said. "We believe in work."

It paid off in perfection Saturday night.

There's nothing lame, after all, about going 12-0.