The University of Utah football program has had a landmark two-season stretch, winning consecutive Pac-12 championships, complete with subsequent trips to the Rose Bowl.
The way Kirk Herbstreit sees it, all of this was not accomplished in just two seasons. No, to the longtime ESPN color analyst, these accomplishments were much longer in the making.
Herbstreit can remember 20-plus years ago, coming out west to call Thursday night games on ESPN with Mike Tirico and later Chris Fowler. Utah was a member of the Mountain West. Ron McBride was still the head coach, and Urban Meyer after him, with Kyle Whittingham as the defensive coordinator. Those days left an impression on Herbstreit.
“I’ve tried to stand on mountain tops and tried to explain to people about their brand of football and how consistent it’s been over the years,” said Herbstreit, who will call both the Peach and Rose Bowls in the coming days alongside Fowler. “I feel really good that they’ve been able to get to the Rose Bowl the last couple of years and show who they are. I don’t think it’s the last two years, I think it’s the last 20 years or longer of who they’ve been.
“I think any time you win the Pac-12 championship and go to the Rose Bowl, people who weren’t familiar with the brand or with Kyle Whittingham and what he’s been doing for a long time, I think if you’re a fan of the sport, it makes you want to dig a little bit deeper and recognize what they’ve been.”
The consistency at Utah that Herbstreit speaks of is evident simply by looking at the program’s record over the last decade, if not longer.
The Utes already have their fourth 10-win season since 2015, their third in the last four non-COVID seasons, and can equal the single-season record for wins with 11 if they beat Penn State on Monday at the Rose Bowl. Furthermore, Utah has won at least nine games in seven of the last eight non-COVID seasons. The outlier there is 2017, when a 7-6 record included four Pac-12 losses by a combined 15 points.
It should be noted that all of this success has come within 12 years of Utah stepping up to the Power Five, a fact that could be construed as ahead of schedule.
None of that is lost on Herbstreit.
“I’m just happy for that program,” Herbstreit said. “They go into the Pac-12 and I don’t know how many saw Utah joining the Pac-12 and thought ‘Wow, the Pac-12 really upgraded, now they’re really gonna get serious.’ I don’t think a lot of people did that. In fact, I think it was the opposite. To see this team get out of the South (Division in 2021) and then win the Pac-12 back-to-back years, especially this year with USC being looked at as a Playoff team if they won, again, it just says a lot about the program and think about what they lost from last year, especially the leadership that they lost.
“I love the program, I love Kyle, I love Cam Rising, I’m a fan, and I have been for a long time.”
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