After going 12-0 in the 2008 regular season Utah was snubbed yet again. The Utes went on to defeat No. 4 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and finish the season as the only undefeated team in the nation.

But Utah finished second in the final polls.

Now, when head coach Kyle Whittingham looks at the schedule he sees opportunity after opportunity. As a member of the Mountain West Conference, Utah’s weak conference schedule was a detriment to its national title hopes. Now playing in the Pac-12 Conference week in and week out, the Utes have a better chance to play in the Bowl Championship Series games they missed out on in the past.

Whittingham is looking forward to the challenges that come with the jump, something the program has prepared for in recent years.

‘It’s a big challenge for our football program and our athletic department,’ Whittingham said during Tuesday’s Pac-12 teleconference. ‘The bar has been raised in virtually every area, and it’s a situation where we feel we’ve recruited well the last five or six years, and we have a lot of good athletes on the roster.’

Utah officially became a member of the Pac-12 on July 1 after leaving the Mountain West. The move marked the first time the conference expanded since 1978. Utah will be in the Pac-12 South along with Colorado, who also joins the conference this season.

The Utes will avoid matchups with No. 3 Oregon and No. 7 Stanford as part of the South division. Utah’s favorable conference schedule gives the team a shot to make a statement in its first season in the Pac-12.

Offensive lineman Tony Bergstrom played in 10 games during the 2008 season. Bergstrom feels fortunate that the team will finally be playing elite competition. He believes Utah has belonged among the best in the country for a while.

‘You kind of look at it as sort of a payoff for all the hard work you’ve put in,’ Bergstrom said during Pac-12 media day. ‘We feel like we’ve done well and had a lot of success. We’ve worked hard and feel like we work as hard as anyone in the country, so this is kind of our payoff for that.’

Utah was the first non-Bowl Championship Series school to secure a BCS bowl in 2004, when the team played and defeated Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl. Whittingham has established a 12-5 record against major conference schools in his seven years at Utah.

It’s a fact that causes other coaches to take notice. The Utes defeated Pac-12 member California 37-27 when the teams last faced each other in the 2009 Poinsettia Bowl. California head coach Jeff Tedford gained a lot of respect for the Utes following that game.

‘It’s no secret how good of a football team and football program that Kyle has built there,’ Tedford said on Pac-12 media day. ‘We played them in a bowl game a couple of years ago. I think we were 5-2 in Bowl games over our tenure there. And that is one of them that we lost. So we have a great deal of respect for Utah, and I think they’re going to be very competitive in the conference.’

The direction that the program is headed will likely afford the Utes a new slew of opportunities. In one season, Utah will play more BCS opponents than it has played in the previous three seasons combined.The Utes open up their Pac-12 schedule Sept. 10 when it faces Southern California in Los Angeles.

It’s a tough first test in the conference, but it’s one that the Utes have been anticipating for years. And Whittingham knows the nation will be watching closely all season, giving his team the attention it has craved.

‘There’s been a lot of anticipation,’ Whittingham said. ‘I guess you could say it’s the most anticipated upcoming season in football history.’

[email protected]

 

Published on August 31, 2011 at 12:00 pm