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Two days after Kyle Whittingham's team beat Oregon like a dirty rug, Monday's news conference gave media the chance to ask if the Utes might reach the College Football Play—
"Don't even go there," he interrupted.
"That's not even in the realm of our thought process."
Jim Mora's "Playoffs?!" it was not, but his message was as clear: Utah intends to look back on Saturday's game as one Pac-12 win, and nothing more.
Even if nobody else shares that ambition.
A story by The New York Times' Marc Tracy was headlined, "Oregon's loss to Utah heralds changing of the Pac-12 guard."
ESPN's Kevin Gemmell recalled Utah's 2008 magic, adding that this time, "the Utes control their own destiny," while Sports Illustrated's Lindsay Schnell wrote that "it's time we start talking about Utah as a conference championship contender."
ESPN's Mark Schlabach and Brett McMurphy projected Utah to the Rose Bowl. Yahoo's Pat Forde went further, bouncing No. 1 Ohio State from his four-team playoff forecast to make way for the Utes.
And the Knoxville News Sentinel's John Adams made the No. 10 Utes the lowest-ranked team to receive a first-place vote in the AP poll this late in the season since No. 10 Hawaii, in 2007.
Opined Washington Post writer Chuck Culpepper: They might be No. 1 if not for "the sport's longstanding reliance on preseason polls (which shape thinking) and, of course, its longstanding snobbery."
Any way you slice it, jackhammering Oregon is a bad way to go about avoiding playoff talk.
There's an infinite store of statistical oddities about Utah's output against Oregon, a team that had been ranked since 2009. One example: Utah won by 11 more points than its combined margin of victory in all seven Pac-12 wins in 2013-14.
Still, senior wideout Kenneth Scott felt the reaction was overblown.
"It seems like everybody's surprised that we beat them," he said, a "pshaw" on the tip of his tongue.
All week, he said, junior right tackle J.J. Dielman pulled the offense aside before practice to look them in the eye and tell them, "We can beat this team."
"Once you repeat something and repeat something and repeat something, it's going to happen."
It's unknown whether Whittingham likewise subscribes to "Beetlejuice" mythology, but he said the result was no great shock to him, either.
"I'm not saying that I thought the outcome was going to be what it was, but we felt we'd had a great week of preparation in all phases, on the field and off the field," he said.
His team needs to take the same approach, he said, lest it suffer a letdown next Saturday against the No. 24 Golden Bears. When Utah beat No. 11 UCLA by 38 in 2007, it lost the following week, 27-0, to a UNLV team that would finish 2-10. Cal presents a far greater challenge.
Said Whittingham: "As soon as you back off just the least little bit, and think that you've got answers, and start projecting 'We're going to do this, we're going to do that,' then someone's going to smack you."
Utah's players have the week off practice while Whittingham's staff analyzes film and evaluates high school prospects through Saturday. Monday then begins eight straight weeks of Saturday conference games, and though Utah is in excellent health for this point in the season, he said, "We've got to get ready for the gauntlet and the grind that is the Pac-12."
But Utah's receivers, quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends plan to get together this week — to run routes and keep up the timing that resulted the highest point total ever recorded in Eugene.
Scott's no fan of rest, he said.
"This is a big year. We ain't got time to be off."
Twitter: @matthew_piper —
Utah bye week
Players will not practice while coaches review film Monday through Wednesday and hit the road to recruit and evaluate preps Thursday through Saturday.
Next • No. 10 Utah hosts No. 24 Cal, on a new turf field, for its homecoming game. Kickoff is 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, and the game will air on ESPN.