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The cause is worthy, so the auctioning of the jerseys the Utah Utes wore Saturday afternoon will be conducted as scheduled.
Burning would sure seem more fitting than bidding, at this point.
Even after all the Utes have accomplished lately, this impression will be a lasting one: Texas Christian 47, Utah 7.
The stage and the stakes were everything Utah could want — the result was something else entirely. This is what can happen when the Utes invite ESPN's "GameDay" crew to the campus, wear specially made uniforms to honor military personnel and ask their fans to wear merchandise of a certain color:
The annual "blackout" can turn into a funereal atmosphere.
The rankings and branding the Utes have worked for years to earn can be partly undone in 60 minutes.
The words on the backs of the players' jerseys can become material for mockery.
Honor? Courage? Duty?
Try embarrassment, wilting, defeat.
Let's just say this looked and felt like a lot more than one loss.
Look, I'm not eager to pile on a coach, his quarterback or a program that had won 38 of 42 games prior to this debacle. I would not have booed Kyle Whittingham, Jordan Wynn or anybody else for one lousy performance against a very good opponent.
Yet amid whatever remains of this season for the Utes to salvage, much was undoubtedly lost in this game. Whittingham spoke only of a Mountain West Conference championship being gone, which is significant. He'll leave this league with one title in six years as head coach.
Obviously, though, far more was available to these Utes, including a Rose Bowl invitation or even a national title shot. Without specifying team goals, senior center Zane Taylor said, "A lot of those are definitely kind of impossible to accomplish now."
A 40-point home loss did damage that nothing in Utah's immediate future — like beating Notre Dame, San Diego State, BYU or a 6-6 team in the Las Vegas Bowl — can fix. Whittingham labeled the margin "not indicative" of the game's nature, and he meant that in the worst possible sense.
The statistics supported him. These were TCU's yardage advantages, after each quarter: 237-42, 328-72, 461-122 and 558-199.
Whittingham used the word "exposed," and there certainly was no hiding the Utes' flaws in those camouflage-trimmed uniforms.
Yeah, the other guys are good. But in football, a result like this requires cooperation (or "combustion," to borrow Ute defensive lineman Christian Cox's label) from both parties. The Utes made errant throws, dropped passes, blew coverages, missed tackles and generally looked even worse than they did last November in Fort Worth, as unimaginable as that may have seemed.
With their limited opportunities for redemption, the Utes can only hope the Frogs make them look somewhat more respectable by taking on somebody in a big bowl and doing the same thing.
"The better they do," Taylor said, "the more that this game made sense."
For now, explanations are lacking amid lingering issues that include the question of what will happen to those jerseys. My suggestion: When the online bidding starts Monday, Whittingham should man a computer. He graciously declined to address the booing, saying, "I apologize to our fans. They deserve better."
The coach could respond further, backing what he described as "a cause more important than football." Whittingham should follow up by personally buying a bunch of the jerseys and donating them to charity, supporting the Wounded Warrior Project. That way, he could make something good come from what currently stands as a disaster, with his name on it.