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By DOUG ALDEN AP Sports Writer
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The impossible expectations of following an unbeaten team are gone.
Utah didn't accomplish anything close to the 2004 Fiesta Bowl champion Utes, but also kept 2005 from being a disaster. The Utes closed the year by winning four of five and raising the optimism entering this fall.
"It took us about halfway through the season for that team to get its own identity," coach Kyle Whittingham said.
While the 2004 team was known for being overwhelming, last year's Utes were merely resilient. After losing three straight, the Utes salvaged the year by winning four of the last five games, closing with an overtime win at Brigham Young to become bowl eligible and soundly beating Georgia Tech in the Emerald Bowl.
The Utes would like to establish themselves much earlier this season. Brett Ratliff has regained the job he inherited late last season when Brian Johnson tore a ligament in his left knee.
If Ratliff still has the winning touch, Utah hopes to win its third Mountain West Conference championship in four years.
"I knew the offense pretty well, but getting in there and getting a shot to actually play and get some game time in the offense really helped," Ratliff said. "It helped a lot confidence wise, knowing that I was capable of making plays and playing at this level."
Ratliff threw for four touchdowns in a 41-34 win at BYU, then four more in the Emerald Bowl. In his two starts, he was 47-for-73 for 621 yards.
It was only two games, but Ratliff seems to have a knack for winning, so he got the job over transfer Tommy Grady in fall camp.
"Brett Ratliff's strength is first of all his poise and his leadership ability. Then his athletic ability comes into play -- his accuracy, his arm strength, his pocket escapeability," offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig said.
The Utes open the season Sept. 2 at UCLA in a game that will either get them some national notice or drop them off the radar right away. Utah received 52 points in the AP preseason Top 25, second among the schools that got votes, but not enough to crack the poll for the first time since finishing at No. 4 two years ago.
After UCLA, the Utes are at home against Division I-AA Northern Arizona on Sept. 9, followed by a visit to Utah State, which has lost eight straight to the Utes.
The Mountain West season opens Sept. 23 at San Diego State and Boise State comes to Salt Lake City for a non-conference game in the first of what could be a difficult two-game stretch early in the season.
After the Broncos, the Utes host defending MWC champion TCU, which ended Utah's 18-game winning streak last season with an overtime victory.
Utah went on to lose three of its next four games, then rallied at the end to salvage the season and beat Georgia Tech 38-10 in the Emerald Bowl, a game the Utes wouldn't have qualified to play in without beating Brigham Young 41-34 in overtime at the end of the regular season.
The Utes avoided what was almost a very dreary winter.
"No one really likes winter conditioning and winter workouts. It's a grind," defensive back Eric Weddle said. "But when you come off winning four of the last five, going into winter conditioning with some confidence and some swagger it makes everything that much easier to cope with. It makes it that much funner."
Weddle, the defensive player of the year in the Mountain West Conference, leads eight starters back on defense.
"It's a lot deeper. We have a lot of starters returning -- a lot of guys who have experience in key situations," Weddle said. Five starters are back on offense, including three linemen, but there isn't much experience in the backfield. Ratliff has only two career starts, and Grady hasn't played since he was a backup at Oklahoma in 2004.
Mike Liti is the only running back to start a game. Quinton Ganther, who led the Utes in rushing with 1,120 yards on 205 carries, is gone, leaving the spot to Liti and Darryl Poston, the fastest Ute running back.
Poston has a long history of injuries that have limited him to playing 15 games since his career started at Southern California in 2001, but Whittingham hopes Poston and Liti can give the Utes a similar combination to Marty Johnson and Ganther in 2004.
Whittingham is in his second season as coach and seems much more comfortable than he did a year ago, when he was promoted after Urban Meyer left for Florida.
He's been joking throughout fall camp and remained calm even through the quarterback battle, which went on until he and Ludwig gave the job to Ratliff on Tuesday night.
"He's just back to his old self," said Weddle, who was an emerging star for Whittingham when he was Meyer's defensive coordinator. "I think everybody on this team realizes that whatever he says goes and what he says isn't just blowing smoke. He knows what he's talking about." ---- On the Net: www.utahutes.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APTV-08-24-06 1517MDT
