EL PASO, Texas -- Do you remember? Rose Bowl hopes were in the air and so was the beginning of fall. Why? I don’t know. The fact of the matter was that Utah was entering a rebuilding year when the Utes welcomed the Montana State Bobcats into Rice-Eccles Stadium on September 1 and began their first year in the Pac-12 conference.

Ute fans knew that starting quarterback Jordan Wynn was fragile and coming off shoulder surgery. They were told that he was 100 percent, but we all knew that if Wynn went down the Utes were in trouble. Turns out, Wynn wasn’t 100 percent and if he was, he wasn’t for long.

Where the Utes weren’t young, they were inexperienced.

Utah fans and other prognosticators looked past the fact that the Utes were thin at the quarterback position, they would be starting a true freshman at safety (maybe the most important defensive position in the Pac-12), they would have to replace their leading receiver and every running back from 2010’s roster, they would be breaking in a totally new offense and they would be replacing three of their five starting offensive lineman with one of them switching positions within the line.

Brian Blechen was moving from safety to linebacker and the secondary was filled with completely new starters: senior Conroy Black, junior Ryan Lacy, junior Keith McGill and true freshman Eric Rowe.

Yet some Ute fans and other national experts were picking Utah to represent the Pac-12 South Division in the inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game.

Then the offensive struggle against Montana State left Ute fans more than worried about traveling to USC for their first ever Pac-12 conference game the next week. If ever Utah could tally a moral victory, it was at USC. The defense kept the Utes in it against the Trojans but ultimately fell short of a real victory, essentially losing by a field goal at USC, a team that would eventually finish the season in the top five in the nation.

From there Utah entered uncharted waters, playing BYU on September 17 in Provo. The 54-10 blowout victory left Cougar nation stunned and Ute fans euphoric. Suddenly those Rose Bowl hopes seemed as close as the Utes’ potential 1998 men’s basketball national championship

The next week, however, the Pasadena dreams were as far away from the Ute football team as that ’98 hoops title seems for Ute basketball fans now. With the loss of Jordan Wynn and Utah’s first ever Pac-12 home game against Washington, any prospect of playing in the Rose Bowl floated off to Never Neverland with Tinkerbell and Peter Pan.

The Utes went into the halftime break of the Washington game trailing by just three points and with a quarterback who had just tweaked his shoulder. He told the coaches, however, that he was good to go and they planned on him for the second half.

Then, just a few moments before the second half started, Wynn took some practice snaps and realized that he couldn’t play the second half. Literally, in a matter of seconds the Utes had to make a colossal adjustment to their offense. As the ball flew through the air from the second half kickoff, offensive coordinator Norm Chow cut out half the playbook in an attempt to simplify the offense for backup quarterback Jon Hays.

The sudden change clearly hurt the Utes as a close game turned into a blowout. It was hard to figure out which was the bigger loss: the game or Wynn.

Hays ended up doing a more than adequate job filling in for Wynn, but this was a guy who Norm Chow Larry Krystkowiak-ed, bringing him in at the last minute after realizing how thin the position was.

After starting 0-4 in the Pac-12 following losses to Arizona State and Cal with a non-conference win at Pitt mixed in, the Utes looked as if they wouldn’t even make a bowl game. The team never gave up, however, following the ugly loss at Cal with four wins in a row (Oregon State, Arizona, UCLA and Washington State).

Suddenly, the unthinkable was more than possible, it was probable. A Utah win over lowly Colorado combined with UCLA and Arizona State losses would put the Utes in the first ever Pac-12 Conference championship game. But that, again, turned out to be another pipe dream.

Somehow the Utes took the Buffs for granted, falling 17-14 in the home finale (I’m still refusing to call it a rivalry). All the other pieces fell into place — UCLA and Arizona State both lost — and the Utes were left playing the ‘what if’ game instead of the Pac-12 championship game.

The Utes were able to pick up the pieces of the heartbreaking loss to Colorado and win the Sun Bowl on Saturday in a game that was a complete microcosm of the season.

The Utes got off to a surprising start by throwing the ball downfield early and often and scoring on the first drive, just like the Utes’ surprising near win at USC and blowout win at BYU.

After some back-and-forth play, the Utes led 10-7 going into half. Then the panic fest ensued. Georgia Tech scored 17 unanswered points, just like the Utes had given up four unanswered losses in the Pac-12.

Utah, however, refused to give up, a trait that the program has become known for in recent history. This was the sentiment echoed by many USC players and coaches before and after their game with the Utes, according to the Versus broadcast crew.

Coming up:

Utah 2011 season grades

Coming up Tuesday, Jan 3. we grade the Utah Utes position-by-position for the 2011 season.

In the Sun Bowl, the Utes trailed by 14 and seemed out of it with some sort of newfangled pass-oriented offense and a defense that couldn’t stop the Georgia Tech triple-option attack (and left fans utterly confused by both). In the middle of the season, the Utes seemed out of it, with no hope of a Pac-12 championship and a seemingly outside chance at a bowl game.

Embodying its coach, the Utes reacted the same way in both cases — with oblivious resilience.

Twitter was writing the Utes off and so were many of the local El Paso fans who began emptying what had been a nearly full stadium. But the Utes refused to see the same game everyone else saw.

It was oblivious resilience.

CBS even tried to show a change in momentum by showing the reactions of both benches when Hays threw a pick-6 to put Georgia Tech up 14, but the attempt fell flat on its face. Georgia Tech’s sideline played the role, but the Utes didn’t.

Each of Utah's defensive linemen, in unison almost as if it were choreographed, immediately picked up their helmets and ran toward the field. They didn’t hang their heads or complain about the fact that they had just been on the field and their offense couldn’t give them a break. They didn’t have the thought everyone else had: “Oh jeez, here we go again.”

This is exactly what Utah did after looking so ugly against Cal that the Ute basketball team cringed at the performance. They were visibly walking the line between bowl eligibility and Pac-12 obscurity.

It is the same type of line the Utah State Aggies walked in the middle of its season. Behind them lay a handful of coulda’s, woulda’s and shoulda’s. In front of them lie a string of games they should win against teams they were better than. But the team’s mindset was in question.

If the Utes (or the Aggies for that matter) had given up on the season, those winnable games in front of them would have easily turned into losses that could have easily turned into the beginning of the end of Utah’s relevancy as a Pac-12 program.

Ute head coach Kyle Whittingham had a meeting with his seniors in the middle of the season and they all made up their mind. They would salvage the season and maybe the program’s future. Amazing just how much a seemingly small decision can change things.

Just like Saturday afternoon, the Utes took care of business. Sometimes it was ugly, but they got the job done. Some ingenious moves by Whittingham (that I admittedly and completely disagreed with, by the way), a few improbable plays and a John White touchdown run later, the Utes were Sun Bowl champions and the season that was once on the brink of oblivion was saved by oblivious resilience.

So what was the main lesson we learned from the Utes’ 2011 season? Expectations will do crazy things anywhere.

Expectations got Pat Hill fired at Fresno State. Expectations had Florida State in the national championship this season. Expectations led to Jake Heaps’ transfer to Kansas (seriously). A BYU fan who went into a coma four months ago and just woke up and read that just went back into his coma out of shock (not seriously). Expectations have BYU fans grumbling at yet another 10-win season. Expectations put the Utes in the Rose Bowl this season, and those expectations lead us away from a very simple summary of this year’s 2011 Utah football team.

Good programs rebuild every three or for years. They have to. But if this season for the Utes, their first in the Pac-12, was a rebuilding year for the program then it appears to be in great shape going forward.

If a year in which the Utes lost the quarterback they knew they couldn’t lose, had eight season-ending injuries throughout the course of the season (five of which were starters), took a huge step up in scheduling strength and returned only 12 starters from 2010 was a rebuilding year, then the Utes have to consider the 2011 season a huge success.

In fact, you have you wonder if maybe the Utes weren’t rebuilding in 2011. Maybe they were reloading.

Coming up Tuesday, Jan 3. we grade the Utah Utes position-by-position for the 2011 season.

Trevor Amicone is the sports director at 88.1 Weber FM "Ogden's Radio Station" and host of the sports talk radio show, "Fully Loaded Sports with Trevor Amicone". Follow his very entertaining Twitter feed at @TrevorAmicone.

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