Columnist Ron Kantowski: Utes are out of their league in MWC

Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

When Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson meets with the BCS folks about seeking a permanent invitation to their exclusive party on Friday, he'll be traveling a little lighter. He'll be able to leave his monkey and tin cup back at MWC headquarters in Colorado Springs.

He can thank the undefeated Utah Utes and their 35-7 drubbing of Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl for that.

"When people switched over from watching the Rose Bowl on TV, they saw a stadium of red," Thompson said, alluding to the throng of 50,000 Utah supporters who made the 11-hour drive from the Wasatch front range to suburban Phoenix. "How could anyone who saw that say Utah is any different from a BCS team?

"The showing is fantastic, and it helps. In challenging the BCS structure, it's about the marketplace. Nobody can argue with tickets sold."

As you might expect, Thompson was effusive in his praise of Utah and anything related to Utah, which would include beehives, tabernacle choirs and Donny and Marie. But deep down, somewhere in his secret garden that is off-limits to the press, I'll bet Thompson had another thought.

If the Mountain West were a comic strip -- and with BYU seemingly having turned into Baylor overnight, that's a distinct possibility -- the latest panel would show Thompson scratching his chin with those little thought bubbles above his head.

"Let's hope the Pac-10 doesn't want a football championship game anytime soon," the caption might read.

If that were to happen, the Utes probably would be gone faster than one of Craig Breedlove's test runs on the Salt Flats.

It used to be that whenever the Pac-10 wanted to scare the MWC with talk of expansion, BYU was mentioned first. Not anymore. Now I'm not so sure the Cougars would even be invited to straggle along as the other team the Pac-10 would need to become the Pac-12 and give it a license to print even more money with a football championship game.

Who's to say that if Pat Hill could be talked into shaving off his mustache and Fresno State cleaned up its act a little bit that it wouldn't make a suitable addition? And then there's always Texas, looming larger than 10-gallon hat. Or maybe even Colorado, although it also has a lot of cleaning up to do around Folsom Field.

The Pac-10 says it's not interested in expansion, but times change, especially when boatloads of cash are involved. And it would have to be impressed by what's happening on the dock in Salt Lake City.

While it's doubtful that Utah can put together another football season like this one, this wasn't a case of catching lightning in a bottle, either. You could see it coming as early as three years ago, when the Utes made USC's Carson Palmer look like Arnold Palmer in the Las Vegas Bowl. The next year, Palmer won the Heisman Trophy. But on that Christmas afternoon, the Utes were the Grinch and he was Cindy from Whoville, as Utah sacked him whenever it pleased en route to a 10-6 win that wasn't that close.

The next year, Utah went into Michigan Stadium and lost to the vaunted Wolverines, 10-0. It was obvious that the Utes, unlike their MWC comrades, could match up with anybody physically, and that all they lacked was some imagination and finesse on offense.

Then along comes Urban Meyer, and you know the rest of the story.

Meyer will be hearing the hosannas at Florida next year, but not even former Utes coach Ron McBride could screw up what Meyer has put in place in Salt Lake City. I suspect Kyle Whittingham, whose defense turned Pittsburgh's offensive line into the Nylon Curtain with nine sacks down in Tempe, will do just fine as Meyer's successor, provided he can continue to recruit those 320-pound Samoans who run like they are late for a luau.

And those big linemen with the funny-sounding surnames aren't the only thing Utah brings to the table. It hasn't been that long since the Utes had Kentucky down by 10 in the national championship game in basketball, and less than 48 hours since it routed LSU on the hardwood. And if women's sports matter to you, the Utes, led by crafty coach Elaine Elliott and All-American Kim Smith, have become a Top 25 program in basketball played below the rim, too.

Throw in modern facilities that were upgraded for the Winter Olympics, a little tradition -- did you know that former Utah quarterback Lee Grosscup invented the shovel pass that the Utes' resurrected this year? -- and those legions of loyal fans, and it's easy to see why Utah would be a plum for any conference looking to extend its boundaries.

According to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune, so many Utes fans stopped at the McDonald's in Page, Ariz., on their way home from Tempe that it ran out of buns, Chicken McNuggets and hot apple pies. A veteran Utah Highway Patrol officer said traffic on U.S. 89 was thicker than he had ever seen it.

So don't be surprised if it's only a matter of time before the only time we see the Utes around here is at the Flying J truck stop out on I-15 by the speedway. They'll be the ones dressed in red, stretching their legs on the way to the Rose Bowl.