Instant Analysis: Sugar Bowl

Four weeks ago, a former Utah mastermind named Urban Meyer defeated Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Friday night in the Louisiana Superdome, Meyer's longtime assistant and friend, Kyle Whittingham, directed a far more brutal beatdown of Bama. As a result, college football has one unbeaten team, a team that now has a legitimate claim to an AP national championship.

In one of the more shocking results of the BCS bowl era, Utah not only defied the odds in New Orleans; Whittingham’s warriors waxed the timid Tide in alarmingly authoritative fashion. This 31-17 spanking acquired the feel of a complete and comprehensive conquest, a victory so decisive that it represented a knockout more than a 15-round split decision. Florida outpointed Alabama on judges’ scorecards on Dec. 6 in the SEC Championship Game. On the second night of 2009, Utah exceeded the Gators by sending the Crimson Tide crashing to the canvas.

When Alabama warred with Florida for four frighteningly fast and physical quarters, in a classic big-boy ballgame that impressed longtime SEC observers, it seemed unfathomable that the South’s second-best team could find itself manhandled by the champions of the Mountain West Conference. Yet, that’s exactly what happened in the Big Easy, as Utah made beating Bama look quite easy, more so than Florida ever did.

Want to understand how Utah achieved a 13-0 season and dramatically increased its standing in the college football world? Sit back and absorb a long list of realities, all nakedly apparent in this supreme stunner.

Utah outcoached Alabama by a country mile. The Utes’ up-tempo offense left the Tide flat-footed, paralyzed, and completely unprepared in a first quarter that saw the Mountain West’s best attain a 21-0 lead. Alabama fought back, but with the Tide still trailing by 11 points for much of the second half, Saban never rolled the dice in a fourth-and-short situation, always assuming that his defense could make a play. All in all, Whittingham coached to win and had his team fully ready to play, while Saban—despite trailing by multiple possessions all night long—never took a chance. While Whittingham and Meyer, his former boss, play college football in the 21st century, Saban—deservedly the national coach of the year in 2008—seemed to regress to the 1950s in this contest. The gap between the two staffs, particularly with respect to their levels of preparedness, was truly that substantial.

On the perimeter, Utah destroyed Dixie’s football pride. The Crimson Tide’s secondary clamped down against other SEC foes, as defensive backs Kareem Jackson and Rashad Johnson proved to be reliable throughout the regular season. Against the Utes’ receivers, however, Alabama’s Jacksons and Johnsons crumbled. Utah’s prime pass-catching trio—Freddie Brown, Bradon Godfrey and David Reed—embarrassed the Tide’s back line of defense by compiling a total of 20 catches for 258 yards and two touchdowns. Utah’s passing game was so dominant that the Utes consistently moved the ball on Bama despite throwing on virtually every down, and plainly abandoning the running game for large stretches of time. Utah felt it didn’t need to run in order to win, and the Utes’ final total of 27 rushing yards proved as much.

Quarterback Brian Johnson, appropriately selected as the game’s Most Outstanding Player after throwing for 336 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, took hold of the proceedings at the outset. With Bama’s secondary displaying its worst tackling of the year and consistently whiffing on quick-hitting routes, Utah receivers were able to move the sticks even on passes that were thrown short of the first-down marker. Early in the game, Johnson sensed this pattern and trusted his receivers to shed tackles. This crucial reality in turn enabled Utah to establish a three-touchdown bulge right out of the chute. Later in the game, Utah still passed the ball with success, but more as a ball-control device than a point-scoring mechanism. Just the same, the Utes constantly did the same basic things with their passing game. Bama slowed down Utah at times, but could never fully stop Brian Johnson’s humming offense, which scored the same amount of points (31) that Tim Tebow and Florida produced against the Tide.

The Utes’ performance, as good as it was on the edges and under center, found the height of its excellence in the trenches. Yes, Utah wasn’t just faster and smarter than the Tide. The best non-BCS conference team in America proved to be more physical than its big-name SEC opponent. On offense, Johnson—who threw 41 passes on the night—consistently received a protective cup from his linemen. Even without the threat of a running game, the Utes clearly contained Bama’s pass rush, a revealing indicator of the extent of Utah’s strength, not to mention the quality of Whittingham’s pass protection schemes.

On defense, Utah’s superiority at the line of scrimmage stood out to an even greater degree. Linebacker Stevenson Sylvester and defensive end Paul Kruger terrorized Bama’s depleted offensive line with devastating speed rushing from the edges. Sylvester racked up three of the Utes’ staggering total of eight (yes, eight!) sacks against Bama quarterback John Parker Wilson. Kruger, for his part, joined the sack party and played a major role in limiting the Tide’s vaunted ground game to just 31 yards, a key reason for Utah’s defensive dominance.

Just how good was Utah’s defense in a larger context? When one considers that Bama scored one touchdown on a punt return by Javier Arenas, and another touchdown after a fumble recovery at the Utah 30, it’s plainly apparent that the Tide could not muster a single sustained touchdown drive without help from their defense or the kicking game. Every single time a long Bama drive cracked the Utah 35, the Utes rose up to stop it. Only a 52-yard field goal by Tide kicker Leigh Tiffin enabled Saban’s squad to claim that it put points on the board after an extended march.

Coaching. Passing. Rushing. Perimeter production. Interior strength. Offense. Defense. In virtually every aspect of this game, except for special teams (and in that category, Bama’s two missed field goals wiped away the Arenas punt return, essentially making the kicking game a wash), Utah did what it wanted to do, while Alabama ultimately floundered. All of this happened in the Tide’s first Sugar Bowl since Gene Stallings won a national title against Miami, 16 years ago to the day in the very same Superdome. All of this happened despite the fact that Utah fans had to make the long trip to New Orleans instead of a shorter trip to Glendale, Ariz., for the Fiesta Bowl. All of this happened despite the fact that two of Utah’s biggest regular-season wins—against TCU and Oregon State, both at home—came in games the Utes hardly dominated. To quote a memorable phrase in American history, “Eheu! It gives one pause.”

Now that the Sugar Bowl has been analyzed, what’s the skinny on the rankings race? How should this mountaintop moment for the Mountain West—and all non-BCS conference teams—reshape the college football pecking order? Everyone has to answer that question individually, but in the meantime, a few points are worth considering.

First, only Utah produced a perfect season. No one else did. While Ball State or Boise State could have run the table without beating a team as good as Alabama, the fact remains that producing a spotless season in college football is one of the toughest feats in sports.

Second, consider that Utah, after taking 12-1—now 12-2—Bama to the woodshed, has an A-list non-conference win to accompany its sensational in-conference conquest of TCU, which will close the 2008 rankings in the top 10. If one were to compare the 2008 Utes to the 1984 Brigham Young team that won the national title, the credentials of Kyle Whittingham’s kids are far better than those offered by their in-state rival from Provo.

Third, and very simply, Utah defeated Alabama even more impressively than Florida did. Nothing more needs to be said on that score.

Only two big-time bowls have yet to be contested. If Texas is anything less than awesome against Ohio State, and if the BCS Championship Game turns into a so-so spectacle bereft of brilliance, it would be more than fair to split a ballot at the very least, and entirely understandable to vote the Utah Utes as the national champions of college football.

The Fiesta Bowl and next Thursday’s title tilt deserve to be evaluated on the merits. If they don’t measure up, however, it might be time to celebrate in the state of Utah, and party like it’s 1984. That scenario—far-fetched before this night began in New Orleans—now stands as an entirely reasonable way to resolve college football’s latest and craziest postseason passion play.