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Florida coach Urban Meyer believes Utah, Texas and Southern California should fight for their teams to be recognized as national champions.
Meyer said at a news conference Wednesday that Utah's Kyle Whittingham, Texas' Mack Brown and USC's Pete Carroll would be bad coaches if they didn't lobby to be ranked No. 1.
Carroll has proclaimed his Trojans the best in the country. Whittingham and Brown have made it clear they will vote their teams No. 1 in the coaches' poll regardless of what happens when the No. 1 Gators play No. 2 Oklahoma in the Bowl Championship Series national title game Thursday night.
Meyer did similar lobbying two years ago when he said his one-loss Gators should play in the BCS title game over Michigan.
Meanwhile, Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham made his argument on ESPN's "Jim Rome is Burning." "There's not a team in the country that can say what we can, and that is that we have not lost," he said.
Even in Utah County, plenty of BYU fans are tipping their hats to the Utes. "Yeah, I think they should be No. 1 since they won all their games. They did everything they could do," one BYU fan told us.
If enough AP voters pick Utah, there could be a split national championship, and the debate rages on.
A writer in San Jose says pick the Utes to embarrass the BCS. A Washington Post article says vote Utah to stand up to the BCS bullies, while a Boston Globe writer says voting Utah No. 1 doesn't make common sense.
E-mail: rjeppeson@ksl.com
(The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
