Farewell to our Pac-12 rivals, where Utah was the best of us

Cal didn't have much time with Utah, but by the end of their decade here they were setting the standard.

Utah’s ascendance was easily the most impressive storyline of the last years of the Pac-12. The Utes hadn’t won recruiting rankings. They hadn’t won the flashy game of headlines. They just consistently built out teams that were tough, physical, and a pain to deal with.

After injuries killed many a capable title-worthy squad, they built out their depth by the end of the decade, and finally had the teams that were capable of going out and manhandling every opponent on their schedule to death.

By all accounts, the Utes were one of the schools most excited for the program’s future in the conference of champions. They loved being in a conference that prided itself on academics. Their Olympic sports of women’s gymnastics and skiing could finally thrive in the conference that cared about those athletic endeavors the most.

On the gridiron, where it mattered hey had proven they could go toe-to-toe with the Pac-12 elite. They became famous for going into the Golden State, imposing their physical brand of football on every program, and posting better records against California programs than any of the California rivals did against each other.

Utah will likely thrive in the Big 12, as they did in the Mountain West Conference, as they had in the Pac-12. But they are mostly unhappy with it, as Cal likely would have been had they had no choice but to join. The Utes loathe BYU, and hate having to follow them and play them year on year.

But I have full faith in Utah surviving the realignment wars, despite some of their market disadvantages. Their athletic department is well run, and they are fully lock in step with the university on maximizing their brand. Their fanbase is invested. The culture they’ve built is arguably second to none out west. While there is some concern what happens when 64-year-old Kyle Whittingham inevitably turns the page, they have risen to the challenge over and over.

---

Cal and Utah only played each other six times. The two games that will most be remembered were during the Sonny Dykes era, with two wire-to-wire games that defined early Utah football in the Pac-12. Close, tough, tense, and often tragic for one team.

On College Gameday in 2015, where 4-0 Utah faced off with 5-0 Cal. Jared Goff had the worst game of his career in Berkeley, and yet still the Bears had a shot to win in the final seconds. It would be Utah’s first ten win season in the Pac-12, and the launchpad for their future success in the conference. Cal would tumble to 7-5 and never really see any national recognition that late in a season ever again.

Cal managed a small dose of revenge the next season, with one of the most improbable goal-line stands you can imagine from the ever-besieged Sonny Dykes/Art Kaufman defenses. That ended Utah’s perfect season, and the Utes fell back to the rest of the Pac for some time.

By the end of the 2010s, Utah had moved to that next level, while Cal stayed right where they had been. The Utes would win two comfortable games in Salt Lake City, one on their way to a Pac-12 title bid, the other with a safety subbing in as the starting running back and gashing an overwhelmed Cal defense.

We have talked several times, here at Write for California and back at California Golden Blogs, about which program Cal was best set to emulate in this conference in the Justin Wilcox era. And the seemingly obvious analogue was Utah, with its tough-minded development in the trenches and owning the line of scrimmage. In some ways, early Cal under Wilcox had that mindset and physicalled its way to two bowl games. But Utah built that culture over the decades, and Cal and Wilcox don’t have decades.

So on marches Utah, who should feel fairly confident that their infrastructure will win out in the long run in the race to matter. Their fans care, their donors are invested, their coaching is solid, they have a tentpole rivalry in college football, and the Big 12 provides them the perfect place to continue to excel.

There are templates here that Cal could potentially follow—when the Bears were tough and mean in the trenches, and everyone bought in, they won a lot of football games. Winning football games is what matters in this calculus.

All we can do is learn from their example.

Preferably, as quickly as possible.

Cal fans, what will be your memories of the Utes?