This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Maybe we've all grown accustomed now to Utah and BYU finishing their regular seasons playing in different stadiums, not playing against one another, as tradition dictated for so long, but at least on Saturday they found a way to play teams from the same league.

Utah's league.

And, really, they had similar motivations: Win for pride, not place.

For the Utes, either way, win or lose, that place would be fifth in the Pac-12 South. For the Cougars, they have no place, no home, no league, no thing. Only a kind of vague notion to re-establish that, no, no, no, no, they haven't completely caromed off the face of the college football cliff and landed in a sorry invisible heap somewhere at the Miami Beach Bowl.

So, instead, there was self-respect for which to play.

And that provided some compelling football.

Utah had a shot in Boulder at its first winning record in the Pac-12 … and got exactly that, beating the Buffs 38-34 and finishing at 5-4 in a tough conference, 8-4 overall. That's a marked improvement from the last two years, when the Utes went 3-6 and 2-7. Most notable in 2014: Utah's four road victories: at UCLA, at Oregon State, at Stanford, at Colorado.

On Saturday, the Utes opened up their offense against the Buffs with enough success to make it worth their while. Actually, they had to. Travis Wilson completed 25 of 37 passes for 311 yards and three touchdowns. Meanwhile, the Utah defense allowed 433 total offensive yards.

And, yeah, this thing turned into a shootout.

Ironically, it was a defensive play that made the difference for the Utes — a pick-six by Dominique Hatfield in the fourth quarter that gave Utah its winning margin. It was fun, and it was wild.

It was the sort of game the Utes had avoided for much of the year, preferring instead to grind out wins and drop tight losses. Utah found itself in three overtime/double-overtime games. Four other games were decided by a total of 10 points. Two games — Oregon and Arizona — got out of hand to the Utes' detriment.

Overall, Utah's season concurrently was a major step forward and a bit of a disappointment, both awesome and agonizing. If the offense had been let out of its cage earlier, the Utes might have lost just two games. Speculation, but it makes you wonder what might have been.

BYU, after four weeks of promise and then seven weeks of nothingness, weathering four straight losses before getting wins just a notch above defeat against a weak team — Middle Tennessee — and two of the worst outfits — UNLV and Savannah State — in all of college football, surfaced at Berkeley with every intention of proving it was legitimate.

The Cougars won, but legitimacy is another matter.

Cal came into that game sporting good news and bad for BYU — an explosive offense led by quarterback Jared Goff and an abysmal D led by pretty much nobody. Still, the Bears were 5-6 coming in and fighting for a bowl bid, all after getting just one win last season.

The game itself turned out to be a lot like BYU's season: strong start, awful mistakes, injuries, bad defense, good rebound from mistakes and kind of a nice-but-irrelevant result: BYU 42, Cal 35. Some folks wanted to say this match proves BYU belongs with the big boys. That's a reach, since the real test is in facing P-5-caliber competition week in, week out. The Cougars, naturally, would love to have that chance.

If they'd had it this year, it might have gotten ugly. As it was, 8-4 looks sweeter than it really was.

BYU had wins over Texas and Virginia, but many of its victories were mostly empty. The Cougars lost their star quarterback, along with some other injuries, and that made a difference. But that's also what a seat at the big-boy table requires: quality depth. The Cougars' losses blew a hole in what might have been, what should have been, a cake season.

Saturday's win over Cal didn't make up for that, although the Cougars themselves will say otherwise. It was a move upward from many of their other wins, but it wasn't enough to brag about, not enough to plant a flagpole in the ground signifying a triumphant season.

Utah's 8-4 is vastly superior to BYU's 8-4.

That proclamation doesn't replace the rivalry game, nor does it win the rivalry game. But it's straight up what's real, nonetheless.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.