Running for a playoff spot, the Utes fell hard
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Lil’ old Utah, the Little Engine That Could of college football, had emerged from the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains to take a rare turn on center stage Friday night, eager to impress the College Football Playoff selection committee and maybe — just maybe — earn a spot alongside the behemoths of Ohio State, Louisiana State and Clemson.
All the under-recruited and overachieving Utes had to do was dispatch an Oregon team that for the past couple of months had looked largely dead on its feet.
At worst, they would end up in the Rose Bowl. At best, they would be in the playoff.
Instead, the Utes looked like they did not even belong on the same field as the Ducks, getting beaten up and down both lines of scrimmage in a 37-15 loss in the Pac-12 Conference championship game.
“My senior year, the stage is set and we just don’t show up,” said Utah quarterback Tyler Huntley, who was sacked six times and threw an interception in the end zone. He was still seething a halfhour after the game ended.
He was also not alone. This, after all, was the second consecutive season that the Utes had floundered here, having lost to Washington by 10-3 last year. But this one came with greater opportunity costs: Had Utah won and accumulated a modest number of style points, and with a Georgia loss to LSU in the Southeastern Conference championship Saturday night, the Utes were well positioned to reach the playoff ahead of the winner of the Big 12 championship between Oklahoma and Baylor.
“It’s obvious what was at stake — more than just the Rose Bowl,” said Darrin Paulo, a senior offensive tackle. “It’s disappointing. I can’t really wrap my head around it right now.”
The loss was also a painful one for the Pac-12 itself.
It ensured that for the third consecutive season — and the fourth in the past five — the conference will miss the playoff. So while the Pac-12 had eight teams in the Associated Press Top 25 poll at some point this season, and it was the only conference in which every team won at least four games, this is an era in which the measure of a conference is taken at the top.
“It’s very important,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said of reaching the four-team playoff. “It’s become clear that’s become a litmus test for a lot of folks that follow the sport as to which teams make the playoff, which teams don’t.”