Chris Hill already knew his decision.

Hill, Utah’s athletic director, knew it even when the rest of the country was honing in on the Big 12 and rumors were swirling around the conference. He knew it even after Boise State had joined the Mountain West, adding another quality mid-major to the conference. And Hill certainly knew what the decision would be before the offer was finally on the table.

So when the Pac-10 did turn to Utah and extend an invitation to join the conference on June 16, Hill knew the Utes would say yes. The university’s board of trustees had already given him and Utah President Michael Young the power to make the decision, and that decision would be to join.

‘Prior to (the offer), we knew that if we were invited, we were going to accept unless there was something that came in the way that we didn’t anticipate,’ Hill said.

Starting in 2011, Utah will no longer be a member of the non-BCS Mountain West Conference. Instead, it will be fighting to earn an automatic BCS bowl birth by winning what will become the Pac-12. For the past decade, Utah has been one of the upper-echelon mid-majors and has managed to break into BCS bowls with undefeated seasons in 2004 and 2008. But starting next year, simply winning its conference gives the Utes at least a BCS birth while an undefeated season could mean a shot at a national championship, something that had a major influence on the decision to change conferences.

‘I just think the prestige of the (Pac-10) both academically and athletically, their championship reputation, being a part of an automatic BCS league, all those things added up,’ Hill said. ‘Winner of the Pac-12 now goes to the Rose Bowl. That’s a huge, huge thing for any university to have in front of themselves as a possibility.’

Pac-10 Chief Operating Officer Kevin Weiberg said that the conference looked at a number of factors in adding a new school, including academic compatibility, connections with Pac-10 schools and the strength of the athletic programs.

Utah fit all the criteria and then some. One of the biggest assets the Pac-10 saw in the school was its geography. The school’s proximity to Salt Lake City adds another major market to the conference.

‘We felt it was important that the dynamic metropolitan areas be part of the sphere of influence that these institutions have, and we think in both Salt Lake City and Denver, those are two dynamic metropolitan areas that are very much part of the mix,’ Weiberg said, referring to Utah and the Pac-10’s other new member, Colorado.

And even though Utah isn’t officially a member of the conference yet, Hill said the move is already paying dividends for the university. Utah’s yearly schedule will no longer include conference matchups with Colorado State, San Diego State and Wyoming but instead will have league games with the likes of Oregon, Southern California and UCLA.

That will mean more prime-time games and, in turn, will help the recruiting process. Some of the coaching staff have told Hill that they can already see changes, despite the news being just 2 months old.

‘Some of our coaches have expressed the fact that they feel that there’s more interest in athletes that they didn’t see it in before,’ Hill said. ‘One of the challenges we’ve always faced is that in the Mountain West, we’re a non-BCS league and going to the Pac-10, we would be. We think that it’s made an affect already and will continue to.’

But the Mountain West may only be a few years away from earning recognition as a BCS conference itself. Its membership already includes No. 6 Texas Christian and a Brigham Young team that finished ranked No. 12 last year.

No. 3 Boise State, another school considered among the upper-echelon mid-majors, accepted an invitation to the Mountain West on June 11. Nevada and Fresno State followed their Western Athletic Conference counterpart and joined the MWC in August.

Despite all the changes made by the Mountain West, Hill said none of it would have changed Utah’s move into the Pac-10. There was nothing the MWC could do to prevent it.

‘We knew where we felt would be the best fit for us, and we needed to move in that direction,’ Hill said. ‘Our decision is really independent of anything that would’ve happened with the Mountain West.’

MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson said that once a team decides to leave, there’s not much the conference would or could do to prevent it.

‘We have the most liberal exit policy probably of any conference in the country,’ he said. ‘We enjoy the relationship with each other, and if it’s something that’s not working for whatever reason, you simply give us notice, we wish you the very best, you finish up the upcoming academic year and you move forward, as Utah did.’

So next season, it’s on to the Pac-10, where Weiberg expects the Utes to be competitive immediately based on their recent history, which includes a Fiesta Bowl win in 2005 and a Sugar Bowl win in 2009 that led to the school’s No. 2 ranking in the season’s final poll.

But even with that success, Weiberg also added that it would be somewhat surprising to see Utah come in and run through the conference.

‘I think it’s always surprising if a team is able to come into a conference and excel at the absolute highest level,’ he said. ‘They certainly are capable of doing that kind of thing, but I think it would be a surprise just because everything’s new about it. You’re traveling to new places to play, and it’s a new experience across the board. It’s just hard in that environment to have an expectation that you’re going to come in and run the table.’

In addition to the new atmospheres, Hill acknowledged that the spotlight would be shining a little brighter on the Utes in coming years. They have to prove themselves in a BCS conference week in and week out.

Hill is optimistic, though, that if the team can just focus on itself instead of worrying about external factors, it can finally shed that dreaded label of ‘mid-major’ and, at the same time, become a factor in a major conference.

‘Pressure, as most coaches would tell you, they put more pressure on themselves than anybody else,’ he said. ‘We’re going to feel some pressure, but mainly from within so that we can perform. I think we’ve had some good background in doing well against BCS schools.

‘The reality is, we wouldn’t be doing this unless we felt that we could compete. Our goal is always to have the best teams we can have and not worry about anything else.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

 

Published on September 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm