A lot of things have changed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Bowl Championship Series over the last few years. With teams like Boise State and Texas Christian finally beginning to get their due as legitimate national title contenders, the major conferences with automatic BCS berths seem poised to lose their stranglehold on the championship title. To look at the true origins of the breakdown of that stranglehold, one need only go back to Urban Meyer's time as the coach of the Utah Utes. The Utes play in the Mountain West Conference, one of the smaller NCAA groupings that were not afforded the automatic berth provided to major conference teams when the BCS was first established. As a result, no team from a conference such as the MWC was invited to a BCS game - that is, until Urban Meyer arrived at the University of Utah.
The Utes can play
When Urban arrived at the University of Utah, he was well aware that they already had a proven history of winning football. Since their origins in 1892, the Utes program has been in five separate conferences and won those conferences 24 times. With an overall record of 617 victories and 421 defeats, as well as a twelve and three record in their postseason bowl match-ups - the highest percentage of wins by any college program with a minimum of ten appearances - there was little doubt in Meyer's mind that he was taking over the reins of a program that had a solid foundation on which to build. His public declaration that his Utes team was going to basically play as hard and fast as they could and provide everyone with a show worth watching was a clear sign that he already felt he had the talent in place to compete at any level.
Breaking the BCS mold
The 2003 season's 10-win and 2-loss victory was clear evidence that his beliefs were correct. With the implementation of the fast-paced spread offense attack, the Utes took on all comers, ended up winning the MWC conference title, and finished the campaign by shutting out Southern Mississippi in the Liberty Bowl. The next year's campaign involved nothing less than a repeat of the conference championship, a new Utes record for scoring (544 points on the season), and an undefeated record. With that record, the BCS knew that they could no longer ignore schools like Utah, and invited them to the 2005 Fiesta Bowl where they trounced the Big East's Pittsburgh team by a score of thirty five to seven. That victory, along with the season's overall results, was enough for the AP to rank them at number four in their final poll of the season.
Meyer's two seasons as the Utes' coach had broken new ground with the Bowl Championship Series, as the BCS selection committee was forced to finally acknowledge that top level football was being played in places outside of the traditional power conferences. The Utes themselves would go on to play in another BCS contest in 2009, defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide in convincing fashion only one year before the Tide would go on to win a national championship.
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