If only they weren't having such a good time.

"It's great," defensive tackle Kite Afeaki said. "We got to bring the family, bring the kids, and let them experience all of this. Especially in a beautiful city like this. Great location at the hotel . . . altogether, it has been great."

Who knew?

In the world of college football, this is a major step down - from the heralded and lucrative Bowl Championship Series to a game in its infancy that will be played in a baseball stadium and that some fans scarcely even know exists. Only a few thousand fans have bought tickets to watch the Utes shoot for a winning season against No. 24 Georgia Tech at SBC Park, and they're hardly choking the freeways and airports on their way to the game or flooding the stores in search of memorabilia.

But by virtue of being headquartered in a darkly luxurious hotel smack in the middle of one of the world's most active and enchanting cities, the Utes have found themselves having a better time than they did when the spotlight shined on them so brightly in the desert last year.

"It has been a more fun experience," defensive back Eric Weddle said. "Overall, there's more stuff to do, and the atmosphere is a little different."

That's because the Utes are hardly under pressure, the way they were against the Pittsburgh Panthers a year ago. They are decided underdogs against the Yellow Jackets, and the players said that has contributed to a relaxed environment - even though they're shooting for an unprecedented fifth-straight bowl victory.

"We've all enjoyed it a lot," linebacker Kyle Brady said. "It's a lot different than last year, that being a BCS bowl. But I think a lot of guys have had a lot of fun here. We got to go see Alcatraz, and just hang out in San Francisco. It's a real nice city."

Coach Kyle Whittingham has enjoyed it so much that he memorably put down the Liberty Bowl and the Las Vegas Bowl in effusively praising San Francisco during a press conference, and athletic director Chris Hill remarked only half-jokingly that the Phoenix area is "just a big strip mall, anyway."

"All of our gifts are great, we're getting great food, we're getting a great city to go out in," center Jesse Boone said, noting tourist attractions such as Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Certainly, the football trappings around the game are much different.

While the Utes were the talk of the town in Tempe, Ariz., last season - they also were earning some $14 million to share with their league, as opposed to just $750,000 this year - the Emerald Bowl does not seem to be attracting much interest in an area preoccupied by professional teams such as the 49ers, Raiders, Warriors and Sharks.

At the Fiesta Bowl, the Utes gave press-conference interviews to hordes of journalists from atop special risers set up in a sprawling hotel ballroom. At the Emerald Bowl, they sat nearly shoulder to shoulder at small tables in a corner of a restaurant that was serving lunch to other patrons just across the room - a restaurant that also flew a Cal flag out front, rather than one from either of the teams it was hosting.

And sure, the players notice.

But they don't really care.

Having fun as a reward for their season is much more important to them, and they could hardly be more pleased with where they wound up, all things considered.

"It's all the same," Weddle said. "The hotel we're staying at now is just as good as the one we stayed at last year. The gifts are the same. The only thing that's different is the hype."

The only downside?

The Utes won't get a chance to come back, because the Emerald Bowl is in the final year of its contract to host a team from the Mountain West Conference. Starting next year, bowl organizers will try to pit more attractive teams from the Atlantic Coast and Pacific 10 conferences.

mcl@sltrib.com

EMERALD BOWL

Utah vs. Georgia Tech

Today, 2:30 p.m., ESPN.