Utah fans spent Saturday night treating a 21-13 escape as proof the sport owes them an apology. The Utes are 7-0 and 4-0 in the Big 12 as of this weekend, and they're the last unbeaten team standing in the conference after BYU went down in double overtime at UCF and Texas Tech lost at Cincinnati the same day. That's real and impressive. It's also mostly a story about everyone else losing, not about Utah looking unbeatable.
Look at how the game actually went before anyone gets crowned. Houston held Utah scoreless through the first half and carried a 13-7 lead into the fourth quarter on the road, against a team ranked ahead of it. Utah needed a 14-0 fourth quarter, with Devon Dampier doing the damage on the ground, to turn that into a final score that flatters the home team. A week earlier, Utah had to grind past a Colorado team that came in well under .500. ESPN's analytics people pointed out that Utah's strength of schedule is the weakest of any team in playoff contention, and that since Big 12 play started, the Utes have let three straight sub-.500 conference opponents score at least 17 points on them. That's a team getting pushed around by teams it's supposed to beat comfortably, then bailing itself out late.
Houston wasn't an easy out. The Cougars came in with a real résumé and had drawn national praise before kickoff, and they lost a tight end early when Patrick Overmyer went down on the first third down of the game and didn't return. Their quarterback appeared to be favoring his leg for stretches, though Houston's coaching staff and the player himself denied on record that he'd actually been hurt. Houston competed for three and a half quarters before Utah stole it late, but that doesn't prove Houston belongs with the best teams in the country. Pat McAfee picked Houston on GameDay and lost that bet, but the reasoning he gave before the game, that Utah hadn't had to play anybody all year, didn't get disproven by a game Utah trailed into the fourth quarter.
Texas Tech and BYU deserve the credit here, for losing on the same Saturday and clearing Utah's path to "last unbeaten team standing" without Utah having to do anything about it. Calling a seven-point, come-from-behind win over a two-loss team a statement game is a stretch. Utah is 7-0. Utah hasn't yet beaten anyone who makes a selection committee sit up straight, and trailing at home in the fourth quarter to a team it was favored over didn't change that. The record is real. Whether Utah has been unfairly doubted is a different question, and it won't get answered until the Utes beat someone who actually scares people.
