Wow, we have already had our first upset of the season. Number 15 Pittsburgh was defeated by unranked Utah 24-27 in overtime. So were the panthers upset, overhyped, or are the Utes for real and a team to keep your eye on?

Brian Johnson

June 20, 2011

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SALT LAKE CITY

Commissioner Larry Scott will be on hand to welcome the University of Utah into the Pac-12 Conference at Utah Pac-12 day on Friday, July 1 on Capitol Hill. Scott is one of several featured dignitaries at the event, which will celebrate the official start of the Pac-12 Conference and Utah's new membership status.

Utah Pac-12 day will start at noon on the south lawn of the Capitol and admission and parking are free. In addition to Scott, speakers will include Utah director of athletics Dr. Chris Hill, ASUU student body president Neela Pack, Congressman Jim Matheson and Lt. Governor Greg Bell.

University of Utah student-athletes and coaches will also be in attendance at the event, along with the Utah Marching Band and spirit teams.

Jeff Evans

Urban Meyer has won at every school he has ever coached at in college football. He began his career as head coach at Bowling Green. He immediately turned the Falcons around by going to a bowl in both his two seasons and had a total record of 17-6. 

Brian Johnson

Provo • When a scholarship offer — albeit one that will be delayed for six months — came from BYU football coaches on Tuesday afternoon, Lone Peak High defensive back and receiver Micah Hannemann didn’t hesitate for a minute.

"I committed on the spot," said the 6-foot-1, 185-pound star, who will be a senior this fall at the school in northern Utah County.

Cougar coaches told Hannemann they will most likely be out of scholarships for defensive backs for the fall of 2012, so Hannemann will "gray-shirt" that fall. That means he will take a limited number of classes, and attend team meetings, but can’t practice with the team.

He will sign a financial aid agreement in 2013 will probably play for the Cougars that year before going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he said.

"I’ve always dreamed of going to BYU, ever since I was a little kid," he said.

Hannemann’s older brother, Jacob, signed with BYU in 2010 but is currently on a church mission.

Micah Hannemann said he got his first offer, from Southern Utah, at the All-Poly Camp last weekend. He attended a camp at Utah on Monday, and believes the Utes were close to extending an offer.

Utah coaches talked to him about playing receiver for them, but Hannemann says BYU will likely use him as a free safety or boundary corner.

"I am excited," he said. "I’ve wanted this [offer from BYU] for a long time."

Hannemann figures he had 50 tackles and five interceptions for Lone Peak last fall as a defensive back. As a lightly used receiver, he caught one touchdown pass. He was a first-team All-Region and honorable mention All-State selection.

drew@sltrib.com

Twitter: @drewjay

Jeff Evans

One calls itself the “Pride of Utah.” The other: “The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe.”

In the new frontier of the Pac-12, perspective is everything.

The USC marching band has measured itself against the best bands in the country for the entirety of its existence. For the Utah band, the university’s move to the Pac-12 brings fresh exposure to an elite set of peers. It starts immediately, when the Utes’ marching band travels to USC on Sept. 10, one of two football road trips scheduled for the band, for Utah’s Pac-12 opener.

The Trojan band is famously intimidating: The drum major, dressed as a Trojan warrior, starts the pregame ritual by stabbing the field with a real sword; the band has performed at the Academy Awards — three times — and riffed on the title track of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” album. At football games, the USC band plays nonstop.

“We have a tune for every situation on the football field,” director Arthur Bartner said.

The Utah band, to its credit, recognizes the challenge.

“Just like there’s a competitive schedule for the football team,” senior drum major Chandra Young said, “we are going to be exposed to a lot of the bigger bands and some really respectable bands.”

Respectable, if not entirely respectful. Take the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band at Stanford, famous for its unorthodox scatter style and, sometimes, crass messages. The band parodied polygamy in a game against BYU in 2004, and once, at Notre Dame, a drum major dressed as a nun and directed the band with a crucifix.

The University of California’s band is known for its creative performances; Arizona State for its size.

Thing is, no one expects the Utah band to fall in step with any of them.

“We all kind of have our own thing,” Oregon State director Brad Townshend said. “Nobody’s trying to be like USC, and USC isn’t trying to be anybody else.”

Still, it’s an elevated club for the Utah marching band, which performed at the 2009 presidential inauguration, but director Brian Sproul said the 217-member band won’t change its ambitions to better fit in the Pac-12.

“It’s not competition-based for us,” Sproul said. “It’s about the education, the students and making good educators and good leaders for tomorrow. It’s not about, ‘We played louder by 10 decibels than you did, so nanner-nanner-nanner. We got 88 percent of our notes correct and you only got 86, so there.’ No one’s keeping that close of score.”

In some ways, it’s a moot point. Only rarely will the Utah marching band’s notes fill the same air as another Pac-12 band. In the fall, the Utah band is scheduled to travel to USC and BYU. Most bands travel only to games against primary rivals, although bigger bands such as USC and Washington always send at least a pep band to away games.

The Utah marching band has more than doubled in size since the 2008 Sugar Bowl, when it was made up of 106 members. The band has spiked by 40 members from last year, and Sproul can’t help but think the new conference is partly responsible.

“I think this is definitely the next step that we need to take,” Young said.

Jeff Evans

There are two bowl games that are just horrible for different reasons. The bowls are supposed to be the grand finale to a season, however, for many teams this is not the case. While there are several games that are just boring, there are two that stood out to me.

Brian Johnson

For some reason, it seems like everyone just assumes and accepts that Boise State is the best non-AQ school.

This has a lot to do with them beating TCU last year, but that was last year and not this one.

I'm not sure if Boise St is better than TCU. One thing I'm sure of is that TCU and Utah have the harder schedule because they play each other. Hence, one of them will have at least one win over a team ranked at the end of the season, one that might even be ranked in the top 10.

Boise State has literally beaten nobody worth talking about.

Oregon State is just terrible and already has 3 losses...2 to non conference and non AQ teams...that barely counts as beating one of the big boys. OR ST is a 3rd rate program in a BCS Conference..it can hardly be considered as one of the "big boys."

VA Tech lost to a FCS opponent...no more needs to be said about them.

TCU has also beaten OR ST. They also played Baylor, BYU, Air Force, and still have Utah. If they beat Utah, they might jump Boise St in the BCS because of how bad the Boise ST schedule is this year. I actually haven't watched all 3 of them play. I think I give the nod to Boise, but I'm not sold that it should be given to them without some thought.

Who do you think is the best Non-AQ football team this year?

Brian Johnson

SALT LAKE CITY — Jimmer Fredette has his own reality show, a song that’s amassed nearly a million YouTube views and a legion of followers.

He also has a legion of detractors, making him possibly the most polarizing player in this year’s NBA draft.

Caught in the middle are the Utah Jazz, who with two first-round picks very well may be in position to pull the trigger at No. 12 and draft the BYU shooter turned national sensation.

The question is should they and will they?

“I don’t envy Kevin O'Connor on this one,” Steve Kerr, a former NBA player and Phoenix Suns executive, said of the Jazz general manager. “If they don’t take him and he blows up and is really good, that’s a problem. Now they’re the team that screwed up and didn’t take Jimmer when he was right in their backyard.

“If [O'Connor] does take him and Jimmer doesn’t pan out, then it’s the opposite. You have to follow your gut. If you like him, take him. Either way it’s a lot of pressure.”

O'Connor gets to make the final decision Thursday on draft night. It won’t be without input from Walt Perrin, the team’s vice president of player personnel.

Perrin knows what it’s like to draft a hometown hero.

He was director of scouting with the Detroit Pistons in 2000 when they held the No. 14 pick. They used it on a guy who grew up in Flint, Mich., and starred at Michigan State, leading the Spartans to the NCAA championship just a few months earlier.

But Mateen Cleaves would hardly become the all-everything player that LeBron James was in Cleveland and Derrick Rose is in Chicago.

Cleaves lasted one year in Detroit, averaging 5.4 points and 2.7 assists, before bouncing around and out of the league.

“It didn’t work out that well,” Perrin said. “There was not that pressure with the team in Detroit as there is right now with Jimmer.”

Perrin doesn’t live in Salt Lake City, so he doesn’t hear what coach Tyrone Corbin and O'Connor must deal with on a daily basis.

But he saw the throng of media that flocked to Fredette’s workout last week, and hears the endless speculation.

If the Jazz go big with the No. 3 pick, a guard figures to be a top priority with the No. 12 pick.

Story Continues →

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Jeff Evans

Published: Sunday, June 26, 2011 1:04 a.m. MDT

Jeff Evans

Our friends in the Mountain West Conference have taken a pretty good hit since this time last year.

In the all-out firefight that was conference realignment, the MWC saw three of its heavy hitters to seek a change in venue. Utah, which made it to a couple of BCS bowls since 2004, jumped to the newly formed Pac-12 for the promise of television payouts that will grow from $1.3 million last season to well more than $20 million in 2013-14.

Brigham Young and its vast resources decided that football independence was the way to go, both competitively and financially.

TCU, one of the most consistent programs in college football under Gary Patterson, won the Rose Bowl last January. But the 2011 season will be TCU's last as a member of the Mountain West as the Horned Frogs will move on to the Big East.

Commissioner Craig Thompson countered by dipping into the WAC and adding Boise State for this season. In 2012, Hawaii, Nevada, and Fresno State will come aboard.

"To say there have been challenges would be a big understatement," Thompson recently told me. "But moving forward, we really like the group of teams that we have."

The irony of TCU's final year in the MWC is that if the Horned Frogs can put together another big season (despite the loss of quarterback Andy Dalton) they could potentially help their former conference earn quite a going-away present: An automatic bid to the BCS in 2012 and 2013.

Brent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune recently brought these numbers to light and they tell us that the Mountain West's pursuit of AQ status could be extremely tense on the field and politically charged off the field. Specifically:

There is a system in place that allows one of the non-AQ conferences (MWC, WAC, Conference USA, Sun Belt, Mid-American) to earn an automatic BCS bid for 2012 and 2013, the last two years of the current contract. Over a four-year evaluation period (which ends after his season), that conference must meet three bench marks.

• The average rank of the highest-ranked team in the conference. Thanks to the success of Utah and TCU in this cycle, the MWC's best team has posted an average rank of 5.3. That's fourth-best behind the SEC (1.3), Big 12 (3.3), Pac-12 (4.7). The MWC must finish in the top six.

• The number of teams in the conference which have been ranked at least once in the Top 25. On this list the MWC is 72.9 percent and is fifth behind the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-12. If the Mountain West maintains those numbers through this season the conference will meet those two criteria. But it's the third benchmark that will be a problem:

• The average computer ranking for ALL the teams in the conference. The MWC would have to be in the top six to qualify. Going into this season the MWC is seventh with a conference wide average of (63.1). New Mexico (1-11), UNLV (2-11), Colorado State (3-9), and Wyoming (3-9) bring the overall average down.

The MWC could hope to improve those numbers this season, but with Utah and BYU gone, the odds are against it.

"Right now that is our focus," Thompson told me. "We want to earn our way by doing what we have to do on the field."

But there is another way. If the Mountain West meets two of the criteria but comes up a little short of a third to get an automatic bid in 2012 and 2013, it can appeal its case to the 12-member BCS Presidential Oversight Committee. This committee has the power to basically say, "OK, close enough" and award the automatic bid to the MWC for those two seasons. If the MWC has another good season in 2011, it can make the case that over the four-year period it has consistently performed at the level of the ACC and Big East, conferences with automatic bids. In fact, it has outperformed the ACC and Big East in two of the three categories. If the presidents say no by the letter of the law, though, this becomes a question of fairness. Given the income disparity between the six AQs and the rest of Division I-A football, it is simply the right thing to do, the argument will go.

In the past seven seasons the non-AQs have placed a total of seven teams in BCS bowls. All this ruling would do is guarantee that the Mountain West champ would get a bid in the last two years of the contract.

"There may come a time when we have to make that case but, as I said, that is not our focus now," said Thompson. "Should we get to that point it will be up to us to share our feelings about the current system. We will do it at the appropriate time."

This has a chance to create some really interesting political theater.

The Presidential Oversight Committee consists of one president from each of the 11 Division I-A conferences plus Rev. John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame. So the AQ conferences have six votes and the non-AQs have five.

Do the presidents take a hard line and deny the appeal?

The rationale for saying no: They would be giving an automatic bid to a conference that has lost the three teams (TCU, BYU, Utah) that put it in a position to earn the bid in the first place. In short, the Mountain West Conference that earned the automatic bid really won't exist anymore.

Or will the presidents, who are risk-averse people by nature, decide they want to bypass the political and media firestorm that surely will follow if the Mountain West does not get AQ status? There will be a bunch of stories pointing out how the MWC has outperformed the ACC and the Big East but that the big boys want to keep all the money, etc., etc. It would be yet another big load of bad press for the BCS.

My (very unsolicited) advice?

If TCU and Boise State (now a member of the MWC) are really good again (like top-10 good) ...

If the Mountain West fields five winning teams (as it did last season) ...

If the Mountain West meets two of the three criteria and is reasonably in the ball park on the third ...

It might be wise to grant them AQ status for two years. First of all, they've earned it. Second of all, the big boys still likely will get the three remaining at-large bids, so the money distribution will stay where it has been for seven years now. And the six AQ conferences avoid a PR fight that they really don't need right now. You don't want to give Christine Varney at the Department of Justice another reason to be looking under the tent.

Now we won't know about any of this until after the 2011 season and all the numbers are in. But knowing that this is on the line (a BCS AQ bid is worth $24.7 million), you’ll understand why Thompson will be a tad nervous on Sept. 3 when his newest member, Boise State, travels to Atlanta to open the season with Georgia.

"Huge game," he said. "Monster game."

The BCS gets criticized for a lot and some of it is deserved. But you gotta admit, it does create some drama.

Jeff Evans

On Thursday, September 9, 2011 the Arizona Wildcats visit the Oklahoma State Cowboys in week two of the 2011 college football season. Last week, the PAC 12 looked shaky: 

Brian Johnson

The TCU Horned Frogs and the Boise State Broncos are the only non-AQ teams left in the BCS discussion after TCU annihilated Utah. The two are battling each other for BCS placement. Who's the Best Non-AQ team of the two?

Brian Johnson

With Kyle Rowley back as starting quarterback, the visiting Spokane Shock take on New Orleans on Saturday night. The Shock (6-7) are tied with Tulsa and Utah for the fourth and final playoff berth in the National Conference.

You can read my game preview that will run in Saturday's S-R here.

Jeff Evans

There are some really important games this weekend. I think it's hard to say which is the most important.

Number 3 TCU takes on number 5 Utah, which will without a doubt shuffle the Top 5 in the BCS. One team will drop and the other has the potential to climb.

Number 6 Alabama goes to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to play the number 10 LSU Tigers. Baton Rouge is a nasty place to have to go on the road and play. This game has National Title and SEC West Title implications on the line. If Bama wins, they are still in the hunt for both SEC West and the National title games. If they lose, they are out of both. If LSU wins out and the number 2 Auburn Tigers lose to both the Georgia Bulldogs and the number 6 Alabama Crimson Tide, then they could make the SEC championship game and have an outside shot at the BCS championship game.

Number 15 Arizona goes to number 13 Stanford in a game that should separate the contender from the pretender in the PAC 10. Is Arizona a legitimate threat to Oregon? Not if they don't beat Stanford. The Ducks have several PAC 10 games left. A loss to Arizona and a loss to Oregon State, would give Stanford the Conference Title if they are able to win out. If Stanford beats Arizona and Arizona beats Oregon, then the PAC 10 is going to join the ACC, Big East, and SEC East as a sloppy mess. If Stanford loses, then Arizona controls its destiny in the PAC 10.

Number 18 Arkansas goes to Columbia, SC to take on the number 19 South Carolina Gamescocks in a game with SEC East implications. Arkansas is pretty eliminated from the SEC West title. South Carolina, however, is in the thick of the messy SEC East. They are actually in the drivers seat for it, but a loss to Arkansas would end that.

Number 21 Baylor goes on the road to take on number 17 Oklahoma State. Baylor beat Texas, but are they for real or is Texas that bad? Well, we find out this weekend. The Big 12 South is still wide open and the 3 teams (Oklahoma is the 3rd) vying for the South Title have yet to play each other. This is the first game between their top 3. Whoever wins will be in the driver's seat and have to beat Oklahoma to go to the Title game. Also, a loss by Baylor hurts TCU in the BCS. So far Baylor has been there big win and the discussion about Utah is that they shouldn't be #5 in the polls. So TCU would love for Baylor to win the Big 12 South.

All I know is we have a great slate of games for the weekend. What do you think is the biggest and most important?

Brian Johnson