Fiesta Time: Honoring the Utes

It's official, the Utes and their fans will be starting the New Year with a big Fiesta party on Jan 1st in Tempe, Arizona. The 5th ranked University of Utah Utes will battle the Big East Conference chamption, Pittsburgh Panthers, in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. There will be plenty of time to break down the game in coming days, but for now, lets kicking off "Fiesta Season" by looking at a few Utes receiving national honors.

Heisman candidate? Who wins that award? The best player? The most valuable? It seems to go to the most popular player on the most popular team. If that holds true, then the USC or OU Quarterback will be given the award. Basically, the Heisman doesn't go to the best player, but much like the BCS system, rewards the top player on the highest ranked BCS team. Luckily, The Sporting News is not so influenced by such politics and has announced The Player of the Year for college football is none other than Utah's Alex Smith. Alex has the passing stats to match USC's Leinart and OU's White, but in addition he has 10 rushing TDs and over 500 rushing yards that they can't match. Like Leinart and White, Smith has led his team to an undefeated season, but he has done so without as many highly acclaimed teammates as OU and USC. Oklahoma has 5 players on the The Coach of the Year, sponsored by Home Depot, and voted by ESPN and ABC college football analysts, was given to Urban Meyer. Another honor might be forthcoming, as the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) has selected Urban as one of six finalists for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award that will be announced later in the month of December. Urban in only 4 years of being a head coach has always been honored among his peers. In addition to this years award, in 2001 he was Mid-American Conference Coach of the year, in 2003 and 2004 was the Mountain West Conference Coach of the year, and 2003 was the Sporting News Coach of the year. One bad thing for the Utes is that when your coach is that much ahead of his peers, he is in huge demand. Therefore, Urban has succombed to the demand, left the University of Utah, and continued his march toward National coaching greatness and has been named Head Coach of the University of Florida. Best of luck Urban. In Fiesta style, we say "Via Con Dios, Good luck, We wish you well".