Re: Dear Bama Fans: We're not just "happy to be here.&a
Utah is back in the BCS. 2nd time in 5 years. It's not 13 NC's and 13 Sugar Bowl appearances, but the truth is that Utah Football (despite being in existence since the late 1800's), is really only something that has been gaining in stature, popularity and some amount of national exposure since the early to mid 1990's. That's a fact of which some Bama fans might not be aware, but the point is that Utah Football has been a work in progress and for the most part, we Ute fans are very pleased with the results.
We popped in and out of the top 25 during the mid-nineties, we were even a top 10 team for a little while. Mixed in with those good years were some lean years of gross underachievement. Since 2003 our football program has gone 58-16 and while most of those losses were accrued during MWC play, a lot of those wins came against OOC opponents like Cal, Oregon, Texas AM, Georgia Tech, UCLA (just to name a few), who get a lot more attention and exposure than we do due to name brand and conference affiliation.
The point for us as Utah fans is that we feel like our program has accomplished some great things in a very short amount of time. So for us, being "back" in the BCS isn't merely an anomaly. Until we see the day of a playoff or the day when Utah is in a conference with a BCS auto tie-in, we Ute fans fully believe that our program can pound on the BCS door (which for us, currently means 1 loss or undefeated seasons) every 3-5 years.
That's a pretty lengthy way of explaining to you why we're "back"....but there you go.
For the record, when we went to the Fiesta Bowl in 2005, we thought we were at least deserving of a matchup with Auburn, since the BCS wouldn't consider either of us for the NC. We're very excited to be playing Alabama and are also very excited that West Virginia didn't win the Big East, thereby witholding temptation from the "system" to screw us over again by dumping us in the Orange Bowl with the ACC champ.
