Utah football has (finally) arrived


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SALT LAKE CITY — Five years after making the trek to greener pastures, where many doubted their potential, Utah is considered one of the top five teams in the country and one of a few that control the Pac-12's destiny of likely making it into the College Football Playoffs.

It's now easy to see that Utah has finally arrived as a top program.

Utah football, from coaches to players, has believed for more than a decade it belongs in the conversation with the premier college football programs around the country. Even as a member of the Mountain West Conference, Utah's coaching staff felt it could compete with anyone. But due to its conference affiliation, the optimistic look was still being considered a David that might occasionally beat a Goliath; a program that could not compete on a weekly basis with the upper-echelon teams of the BCS era.

And in some part, the doubters were right. Utah did struggle in the acclimation process of playing big-time football and lost a lot of games.

Utah's trek to the Pac-12 started well its first year as the team narrowly missed out on the inaugural Pac-12 championship game. But back-to-back 5-7 seasons had many believing Utah was in over its head and that the Pac-12 may be too much for the Utes; that Utah was still not able to compete week-in and week-out against top programs. Utah was close, but still not close enough.

In 2014, though, Utah made a statement by sweeping the California schools while remaining competitive with all its opponents. As a result, the program ended with a 9-4 record on the season. The signature wins had finally come and Utah rode the Top 25 rankings train for much of the season.

Still, there was doubt Utah could follow it up for another year, particularly after once again losing another offensive coordinator and then an integral defensive coordinator and recruiter in Kalani Sitake to Oregon State. To add to the apprehension, for the third season in a row, Utah entered the 2015 campaign picked to finish fifth in the South Division.

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Now, however, Utah sits atop the conference as one of only two undefeated teams. Its perseverance has the nation talking, even on a bye week more than seven days after dominating Oregon on the road. All week, the conversation has largely been upon Utah and how it deserves to be in the College Football Playoffs talk. ESPN even decided to move the Utes up to No. 1 in its Power Rankings and others contended that Utah is the best team in the country despite not actually playing a game this past week.

Utah is no longer competing for recognition or credibility. The program has arrived and deserves to be taken serious moving forward, no matter how the remainder of the season pans out. No longer is Utah a flash-in-the-pan program with Mountain West Conference talent looking for moral victories against the likes of USC and Oregon.

Head coach Kyle Whittingham, as expected, has maintained a level-headed approach, though, believing that any talk of the Utes being invited into the College Football Playoffs only a few weeks into the season is irresponsible and that no one in the program — at least openly — is buying into the playoff talk.

"No, it's not even in the realm of our thought process," Whittingham said after being asked about his team being linked to the College Football Playoffs. "We're just trying to figure out a way to beat Cal. Period. That's where it begins and that's where it ends."

While Whittingham is right to not focus on the talk of the playoffs, Utah is indeed in the conversation and will have a target on its back for its eight remaining games — games they could easily win but just as easily lose. Utah is the so-called giant now, and every remaining opponent will try to knock them down week after week.

"You can't think you've got all the answers after winning a big game and thinking that you've arrived, because you haven't," Whittingham said. "You don't want to get ahead of yourself; that's stupid to get ahead of yourself. We've got to understand that we played a good football game and we'd like to build off it.

"We want to repeat the things that we did in the preparation process leading up to that (Oregon) game because that was the biggest key," he added. "The game was won long before Saturday. The game wasn't won on Saturday; it was won Monday-Friday. Our guys have got to understand that."

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Fortunately for Utah, Whittingham has experience leading a team on its undefeated path, once as an assistant under Urban Meyer and another as a head coach. Whether Utah maintains its undefeated streak or not, Whittingham has been there before and knows the weekly grind that comes with each week's challenge.

Survive and advance.

Utah doesn't need to win any style points or dominate teams in a similar fashion to the Oregon game to keep the respect. Win one game and move onto the next with confidence in the collective process, moving toward the eventual goal of the College Football Playoffs.

"We've got to get back to work. As soon as you back off just the least little bit and think that you've got answers and start projecting that we're going to do this, we're going to do that, then someone's going to smack you," Whittingham said. "We've got our own goals and some things that we want to accomplish. We've just got to take those on our own timeline and not worry about the external standings."

"You can't slip up, you can't relax. Anybody can beat you," senior receiver Kenneth Scott said. "It's just whoever is more efficient and effective. We've got to keep grounded and be humble about it. Yes, we won, but it's easily someone can beat us next week, and so we've just got to keep going.

"You can have all the hype in the world and then the next week get all the criticism in the world. It's a fine line where you've got to keep it balanced. My main focus is: the season isn't over yet," Scott added. "We've still got eight more games. Every week you've got to come out prepared and execute or you're going to get beat. Plain and simple."

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