Utah football: Utes have long time to dwell on loss

The Utah Utes have several weeks to get over Saturday's heart-breaking overtime loss to BYU.

However, as far as they are concerned, all that down time until their bowl game isn't a good thing. They'd rather have another opponent to keep their minds off the 26-23 defeat.

"We are pretty down right now," linebacker Stevenson Sylvester said. "It's one thing to lose a game during a season. You have a chance the next week. This is the end of the season and a loss can linger a couple of weeks. I hate to lose, but we have to come out in the bowl game and make it happen."

The Utes (9-3, 6-2) won't find out where they are headed for their bowl game until the Bowl Championship Series makes its selections on Sunday.

TCU is headed to the BCS, which means the Utes are headed either to the Dec. 22 Las Vegas Bowl to play the Pac-10's fifth-place team or the Dec. 23 Poinsettia Bowl to play the Pac-10's sixth-place team.

The Pac-10 concludes its season Saturday.

Las Vegas gets the first pick and normally chooses the highest-placed team available. However, BYU has been to the bowl four years in a row, so the Las Vegas Bowl might go with the Utes for a change.

The Utes will have a team meeting today, coach Kyle Whittingham said, then practice two or three times this week.

The Utes last played in San Diego's Poinsettia Bowl in 2007 when they defeated Navy 35-32, and last played in the Las Vegas Bowl in 2001 when they defeated

USC 10-6 on Christmas Day.

That victory started Utah's current eight-game bowl winning streak, which is the longest in the nation.

 

lwodraska@sltrib.com