Utes stay put at No. 18 in latest College Football Playoff rankings

SALT LAKE CITY — Kyle Whittingham called it a "great response" for both his players and the coaching staff.

A week after being dominated at home by Oregon, where Whittingham laid the blame on himself and the coaching staff for not helping the players succeed, the roles were reversed as Utah earned a 52-point victory — the largest margin of victory in a Pac-12 game for the Utes — over an Arizona State team in a rebuilding year.

"Coordinators had outstanding plans on both sides of the ball, players did a great job executing it, and so I couldn't be more pleased with our coaching staff and our players," Whittingham said Monday. "That's exactly what we needed was to have a reset of sorts, I guess you could say, and get back on track."

That track has been littered with tough games all season, and it won't get any easier Saturday as Utah travels to Seattle to take on a College Football Playoff contender in Washington, which is led by a Heisman Trophy contender in Michael Penix Jr.

But for now, the win Saturday was good enough to keep Utah among the best 25 programs in the country. On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff selection committee kept the Utes up to No. 18 in the latest rankings.

With its inclusion in the latest CFP rankings, Utah has now spent 43 weeks (out of 56) ranked, just one week short of two-time reigning national champion Georgia, who checked in at No. 2 this week. Utah is the seventh most ranked team all-time in the College Football Playoff rankings era.

Utah is one one of five teams ranked from the Pac-12 and the fourth-highest ranked team in the conference. Washington leads the Pac-12 at No. 5 and is just one spot outside of the four-team playoff after a win over USC. Behind the Huskies is No. 6 Oregon, No. 12 Oregon State, No. 18 Utah and No. 21 Arizona.

UCLA and USC, which were previously ranked, dropped out of the rankings this week.

Ohio State remains the top team in the country for the second straight week, according to the selection committee. The remaining three teams included in the four-team playoff as of now is Georgia, Michigan and Florida State to round out the top four teams.

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