There have been better teams and better years inside the frame of Utah football, but there’s never been a better season played against the consistent level of competition the 2018 Utes faced.
And that’s why they owe themselves something, still — a Holiday Bowl win on Monday night, the fitting way to end the season and the year.
It’s not as though the Pac-12 was any kind of juggernaut, any sort of murderers row, relative to other P5 leagues this year. And yet, the two top teams in the history of Utah’s program — the 2004 and 2008 iterations, great teams each — did not have to contend with what these Utes did, at least not week in and week out.