(Written by kencraw)

I’m not sure why it happened this way, but this blog has become the home of Utah bashing the last couple weeks as I’ve been ranting about how much they don’t deserve their lofty status in some people’s minds. Part of what got me riled up was not just what the pundits were saying, but the Utah fans, who were slowly becoming intolerable, acting as if their march to 8-4 overall and 5-4 in conference showed they belonged with the big-boys.

Well, they got their first real lesson about life in a big-boy conference yesterday, losing to lowly Colorado, the only team with only 1 conference win coming into the game and who hadn’t won a game on the road since October 27th, 2007 (that’s not a typo… 2007. For context, that’s two weeks after Cal was ranked #2 in the country and Kevin Riley made his most famous mistake of running for it without any timeouts). Looks like the players had been listening to their over inflated fans and forgot the #1 rule of big-boy conferences: EVERY team in the conference is good enough to beat you if you don’t come with your A-game.

So now they’ll be stuck in the middle of the muck, 7-5 overall and 4-5 in conference. And I find it necessary to remind everyone that they achieved that mediocre record by avoiding a beat-down from either Oregon and Stanford. Of the other teams in the muck in the middle (UW, Cal, UCLA and ASU) that will likely end the season either 7-5 or 6-6 and 5-4 or 4-5 in conference, they lost to all but one (UCLA). UCLA of course being that “impressive” win that showed how good Utah is.

That preamble is a long way of saying I couldn’t help but smile last night as I turned on the Cal game to find out that Utah had lost to Colorado earlier in the day. It’s always nice to see cosmic balance restored and fan bases with an over-inflated ego having to eat some crow.

Sorry, Utah fans, no Pac-12 south championship for you, despite the fact that everything you needed to have happen to the other teams is happening. All you had to do was win your game, but you got caught looking ahead and forgetting to take care of business this weekend. At some level, after I’ve finished smirking, I feel for you and empathize. As a Cal fan I’ve been there before (see UCLA circa 2011, 2007, 2005 and OSU, circa 2007, 2005). Take solace in knowing that I won’t be railing against you any more after your new-found humility.