A lot of things have changed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Bowl Championship Series more than the last few years. With teams like Boise State and Texas Christian finally beginning to get their due as legitimate national title contenders, the key conferences with automatic BCS berths seem poised to lose their stranglehold on the championship title. To look at the true origins in the breakdown of that stranglehold, one require only go back to Urban Meyer’s time since the coach with the Utah Utes. The Utes play from the Mountain West Conference, one in the smaller NCAA groupings that were not afforded the automatic berth provided to important conference teams when the BCS was initial established. Like a result, no team from a conference for example the MWC was invited to a BCS game – that is, until Urban Meyer arrived at the University of Utah.

The Utes can play

When Urban arrived at the University of Utah, he was well aware that they already had a proven history of winning football. Since their origins in 1892, the Utes system has been in 5 separate conferences and won those conferences 24 times. With an overall report of 617 victories and 421 defeats, in addition to a twelve and three report in their postseason bowl match-ups – the highest percentage of wins by any college plan with a minimum of ten appearances – there was little doubt in Meyer’s mind that he was taking over the reins of a system that had a solid foundation on which to build. His public declaration that his Utes team was going to basically play as tough and quickly as they could and offer everybody using a show worth watching was a clear sign that he currently felt he had the talent in place to compete at any level.

Breaking the BCS mold

The 2003 season’s 10-win and 2-loss victory was clear evidence that his beliefs were correct. Using the implementation of the fast-paced spread offense attack, the Utes took on all comers, ended up winning the MWC conference title, and finished the campaign by shutting out Southern Mississippi from the Liberty Bowl. The next year’s campaign involved nothing less than a repeat of the conference championship, a new Utes record for scoring (544 points on the season), and an undefeated record. With that report, the BCS knew that they could no longer ignore schools like Utah, and invited them to the 2005 Fiesta Bowl where they trounced the Large East’s Pittsburgh team by a score of thirty 5 to seven. That victory, along using the season’s overall results, was sufficient for the AP to rank them at number four in their final poll on the season.

Meyer’s two seasons since the Utes’ coach had broken new ground using the Bowl Championship Series, since the BCS selection committee was forced to finally acknowledge that top level football was being played in places outside in the traditional power conferences. The Utes themselves would go on to play in another BCS contest in 2009, defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in convincing fashion only one year prior to the Tide would go on to win a national championship.

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