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It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but a lot more people watched Utah lose to Colorado on Saturday than watched BYU beat Utah State.

The Utes-Buffaloes game drew 2.55 million viewers on Fox, according to Nielsen. A rough estimate puts the viewership of the BYU-USU game somewhere between 300,00-400,000 on ESPNU. (And that may be generous.)

And here are the Top Four Reasons for that:

(4) The Utah-CU game matched teams from different TV markets — Salt Lake (884,900 homes) and Denver (1,576,090 homes). Although die-hard Cougar fans argue BYU have a national following.

(3) The Utah-CU game kicked off at 5:35 p.m. MT and was played mostly in prime time in the East, extending into prime time in the West. The BYU-USU game kicked off at 8:26 p.m. MT ­— 9:26 p.m CT and 10:26 p.m. ET. Fewer viewers are in front of their TVs later at night.

(2) The Fox broadcast network is available in virtually every TV-equipped home — 118.4 million. ESPNU is available in 69.8 million homes — 41 percent fewer than Fox. (Through Nov. 19, ESPNU's 51 live college football telecasts this season averaged 279,000 viewers.)

(1) The CU-Utah game actually meant something —a Pac-12 division title (for the Buffs). The BYU-USU game didn't mean much to anybody not a Cougar or Aggie fan.

The Utah-CU game was down 57 percent from Notre Dame-Stanford in the same time slot/same channel last year. And Utah-CU drew about 60 percent fewer viewers than the competing Florida-Florida State game on ABC — also between two teams from the same state, albeit a state with seven times the population of Utah.

Although it's not really news that more people are interested in Florida-FSU than in BYU-USU, is it?

USU PLAYER CRITICIZED • ESPNU's Dan Hawkins went after USU linebacker Brock Carmen on Saturday with a bit more gusto than you usually hear when analysts are criticizing college athletes.

Shortly after Carmen's 46-yard pick-six of a Tanner Mangum pass was called back because of an interference call (confirmed by the replay) Carmen was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. As the replay showed, although he didn't make the tackle, he bent over BYU running back KJ Hall and yelled at him — and penalty flags flew.

"Yeah, that was classy," Hawkins said sarcastically. "You're down 28-10, you're going to give 'em the business. How about you give 'em the business with the pads and your play? You can run for office later."

Tough. But fair, given the replay.

Play-by-play man Mark Neely acknowledged that Carmen must have been "frustrated" when his TD was called back, adding there was "no call" for his behavior.

At which point Hawkins proved that sometimes saying less is the better way to go.

"It's been a tough season for the Ags," said the former Boise State coach (2001-2005) who was fired by Colorado before he completed his fifth season there in 2010, going 19-39. "You got nothing on the line here, but that's part of the beauty of football, man. It's a tough game for tough guys. You're playing for a lot of altruistic reasons right now if you're the Aggies. And you just fighting on moral principle and philosophies and hanging in there and staring the dragon in the eye."

Huh?

Hawkins is leaving ESPN to become head coach at UC Davis of the Big Sky, where he can stare the dragon in the eye.

Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune . Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.