As Utah prepares to face off with UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night, the thought occurs about what this game might have been, what it might have meant had circumstances remained what they once were. Namely, had the Pac-12, as previously constituted, remained intact.
Yeah, I know, water under a bridge now too far.
Kyle Whittingham talked earlier this week about the familiarity shared by these teams, the Bruins and the Utes having played and competed against one another not just in a conference turned to vapor, but also in the South Division of that league nuked by greed.
Hmm. Too soon, Ute fans?
No question Utah football had found comfort in the old Pac-12, having made a habit of contending for championships there. Twice the Utes had appeared not in the Rose Bowl itself, but in the Rose Bowl Game, as the Tournament of Roses folks in Pasadena like to distinguish that contest.
Sure, they lost to Ohio State and Penn State, but those games were memorable for Ute players and coaches and for tens of thousands of Utah fans, many of whom witnessed the famous parade along Colorado Boulevard in the run-up to the game played, surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance — and in the presence of ghosts of college football’s past — in the aforementioned historic venue.
Saturday’s season opener will feature the same clash of colors, crimson-and-white versus blue-and-gold, the mix of which will mean less now than what was at stake in seasons gone by.
Pity.
Instead of an intra-league game, this will be an inter-league deal, the Utes half-heartedly representing the Big 12, the Bruins representing the conference Utah would prefer to be a part of — the Big Ten. The latter is the entity that blew the old conference apart, in tandem with a certain network and the Pac-12’s own inept leadership, luring in USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, the former the entity that threw out a safety net for the Utes so they wouldn’t suffer a similar sorry fate to outfits such as Washington State and Oregon State.
That, of course, is not to say the Utes aren’t hungry for a win. They badly want to beat down their old foe, in part because the Bruins — along with the others — hung them out to dry, unconcerned with the damage and difficulties Utah might face as it sifted through the debris left in the aftermath; and on account of the notion that one of the best ways for the Utes to prove themselves worthy of an eventual Big Ten invitation is for them to take down the teams already included.
Not that any of that will be top of mind for the players, other than their own thirst for victory. But it will be banging around inside the brains of Utah administrators who yet have dreams of gaining the prestige and the money that would flow their way were they to stir serious interest of certain powers that be farther east.
Reasons for Utah’s discomfort in the Big 12 center on a sense of privilege and superiority over schools in their new league, a sense that is justified in their own minds even as it is deemed nonsensical in the view of their current league-mates. That’s one of the pleasures prompted around the conference by last season’s inaugural flop by Utah football.
While Utah-rival BYU seems happy in and fully acclimated to the Big 12, Utah remains something of a wanderer in a lonely truck-stop land, even as Arizona State, Arizona, and Colorado are settling in alongside. Inside the volatility of college football, who knows what the comprehensive scene will look like a few seasons ahead. Truth be told, every school in the Big 12 would likely leap headfirst toward the Big Ten or the SEC, if it could.
Either way, the Utes take great pride in their program, as they should. If home, comfortable or uncomfortable, is wherever their feet are, then they most definitely want to rep it well, for their own banner, if not for the sake of their league. To be real, the Big 12 is a quality football conference and should be seen as such. Winning it would bounce Utah forward.
The Utes, then, will literally play outside their league against the Bruins, but figuratively they will not be facing a team out of their league. Utah football has been better than UCLA football in a number of recent seasons. That was then, this is now.
Sentimentalists can join in and rue the day the Pac-12 collapsed, they can wish a league race would be in the offing on Saturday at the Rose Bowl. But what’s done is done. What Utah can play for here is part of the same thing that’s at stake every game day and game night, the same thing it craves for itself in the present and the future — status and stature and standing.
That craving can be baked down to this: Eventually beat the guys who live on your street today. Before that, beat the guys who moved uptown, leaving you behind yesterday, and thereby increase your chances of joining them again tomorrow, with all the satisfied glory and greed in tow.