The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a college football post-season selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including an opportunity for the top two teams to compete in a national championship game. The system was in place from the 1998 season to the 2013 season and was replaced in 2014 by the College Football Playoff.
Urban Frank Meyer III is an American sportscaster and former college football coach. He spent most of his coaching career at the collegiate level, having served as the head coach of the Bowling Green Falcons from 2001 to 2002, the Utah Utes from 2003 to 2004, the Florida Gators from 2005 to 2010, and the Ohio State Buckeyes from 2012 to 2018. He retired from coaching in 2019 at the end of the Rose Bowl, and stayed at Ohio State as an assistant athletic director and was also an analyst for Fox Sports, appearing weekly on their Big Noon Kickoff pregame show. In 2021, Meyer came out of retirement to take his first National Football League (NFL) job as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, but was fired 13 games into his first and only season, after going 2–11 and being involved in both on- and off-field controversies. He then went back to Fox Sports to resume his broadcasting career.
The 2004–05 NCAA football bowl games were a series of 32 post-season games played in December 2004 and January 2005 for Division I-A football teams and their all-stars. The post-season began with the New Orleans Bowl on December 14, 2004, and concluded on January 29, 2005, with the season-ending Senior Bowl.
Jordan Alan Gross is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Utah Utes, earning consensus All-American honors. He spent his entire career with the Panthers, who selected him eighth overall in the 2003 NFL draft, and became their sideline reporter.
Uikelotu Christopher Kemoeatu is an American former professional football player who was a guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Utah Utes, and was selected by the Steelers in the sixth round of the 2005 NFL draft. He is the younger brother of former NFL nose tackle Ma'ake Kemoeatu.
The 2004 NCAA Division I-A football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The regular season began on August 28, 2004 and ended on December 4, 2004. The postseason concluded on January 4, 2005 with the Orange Bowl, which served as the season's Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship Game.
The Holy War is the name given to the American college football rivalry game played by the Brigham Young University (BYU) Cougars and the University of Utah Utes, nearly annually. It is part of the larger BYU–Utah sports rivalry. In this context, the term "Holy War" refers to the fact that BYU is owned and administered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a 98% LDS student population and the U of U is a secular, public university, which has a substantial but far less monolithic student population. Currently, the U of U president and head football coach are Latter-day Saints.
Kyle David Whittingham is an American college football coach and former player. He currently serves as the head football coach at the University of Utah, a position he has held since 2005, and he is the all-time leader in wins for the Utah Utes. Prior to becoming the head coach at Utah, Whittingham served as Utes defensive coordinator for ten seasons. He won AFCA Coach of the Year and the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award in 2008 after leading the 2008 Utah Utes football team to an undefeated season and a win in the 2009 Sugar Bowl over the 2008 Alabama Crimson Tide football team. He and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy are the second longest tenured FBS coaches, trailing only Kirk Ferentz.
The Utah Utes are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans. The men's basketball team is known as the Runnin' Utes; the women's gymnastics team is known as the Red Rocks.
The Brigham Young University (BYU) Cougars and the University of Utah (Utah) Utes have a longstanding intercollegiate rivalry. The annual college football game is frequently referred to as the Holy War. In the 1890s, when BYU was still known as Brigham Young Academy (BYA), the two schools started competing athletically. The schools have met continually since 1909 in men's basketball, and met once a year in football from 1922 to 2013, with the exception of 1943–45 when BYU did not field a team due to World War II. Both schools formerly competed in the Mountain West Conference, but both teams left the MWC in 2011—Utah joined the Pac-12 Conference and BYU became a football independent while joining the West Coast Conference for other sports. Both teams currently compete in the Big XII Conference, with BYU joining in 2023 and Utah being added to the conference in 2024.
The Utah Utes football program is a college football team that competes in the Big 12 Conference of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I and represents the University of Utah. The Utah college football program began in 1892 and has played home games at the current site of Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City since 1927. They have won 28 conference championships in five conferences during their history, and, as of the end of the 2022 season, they have a cumulative record of 711 wins, 476 losses, and 31 ties (.596).
The 2005 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, played on January 1, 2005, was the 34th edition of the Fiesta Bowl. The game was played between Utah and Pittsburgh, in front of 73,519 fans. It is notable for being the first BCS game to feature a team from a BCS non-AQ conference.
The 2006 BYU Cougars football team represented Brigham Young University in the 2006 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Cougars won the Mountain West Conference (MWC) championship outright with an 11–2 record, their first unbeaten conference play since 2001. This was also BYU's third season with at least a share of the MWC title. The Cougars played their home games at LaVell Edwards Stadium, named after its legendary coach, LaVell Edwards.
The 2004 Mountain West Conference football season was the sixth since eight former members of the Western Athletic Conference banded together to form the Mountain West Conference. It was the last season of the conference's original eight-team line up, as Texas Christian University (TCU) had agreed to join the conference for the 2005 season. Utah won the conference championship in 2004, the Utes' third title since the league began in 1999. On the strength of their perfect 11–0 record in the regular season, Utah became the first team from a BCS non-AQ conference to be invited to a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl when they accepted an invitation to play Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl.
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system used between 1998 and 2013 that replaced the previously similarly more controversial Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance that was used between 1992 and 1997 and was replaced by the College Football Playoff in 2014. The selection system was designed, through polls and computer statistics, to determine a No. 1 and No. 2 ranked team in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). After the final polls, the two top teams were chosen to play in the BCS National Championship Game which determined the BCS national champion team, but not the champion team for independent voting systems. This format was intended to be "bowl-centered" rather than a traditional playoff system, since numerous FBS Conferences had expressed their unwillingness to participate in a play-off system. However, due to the unique and often esoteric nature of the BCS format, there had been controversy as to which two teams should play for the national championship and which teams should play in the four other BCS bowl games. In this selection process, the BCS was often criticized for conference favoritism, its inequality of access for teams in non-Automatic Qualifying (non-AQ) Conferences, and perceived monopolistic, "profit-centered" motives. In terms of this last concern, Congress explored the possibility on more than one occasion of holding hearings to determine the legality of the BCS under the terms of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the United States Justice Department also periodically announced interest in investigating the BCS for similar reasons.
The 2008 Utah Utes football team represented the University of Utah in the 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team, coached by 4th year head football coach Kyle Whittingham, plays its home games in Rice-Eccles Stadium. Utah was one of only two teams in the top-level Division I FBS to finish the regular season undefeated, but after the Broncos were defeated by TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl and Utah won the Sugar Bowl over Alabama, the Utes finished as the nation's only undefeated team. It was the fifth undefeated and untied season in school history. During the 2008-2009 season, Utah defeated 4 teams that were ranked in the AP's final poll: #6 Alabama, #7 TCU, #18 Oregon State, and #25 BYU. Utah also began the season by defeating the Michigan Wolverines—ranked #24 at the time—in Ann Arbor. This resume propelled Utah to finish the season ranked #1 in four out of the six BCS computer models: Sagarin (Elo-Chess), Peter Wolfe, Anderson & Hester, and Massey.
The 2009 Allstate Sugar Bowl was the 75th annual edition of the annual college football bowl game that is part of the 2008–09 bowl season of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The game was played on Friday, January 2, 2009, at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana between the Utah Utes, champions of the Mountain West Conference, and the Alabama Crimson Tide, representing the Southeastern Conference.
Brian Delance Johnson is an American professional football coach and former quarterback who is the assistant head coach and offensive pass game coordinator for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He has been an offensive coordinator for the NCAA's Utah Utes, Houston Cougars, and Florida Gators and the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles. Johnson played college football at Utah and was briefly a member of the United Football League's (UFL) New York Sentinels in 2009.
The 2009 Utah Utes football team represented the University of Utah in the 2009 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team, coached by 5th year head football coach Kyle Whittingham, played its home games in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Morgan Scalley is an American college football coach. He is the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at the University of Utah, positions he has held since 2016. He played high school football at Highland High School in Salt Lake City and college football at the U of U as a defensive back.
