At this point in the season the Utes are sitting on 4 straight moral victories compared to BYU's zero. This is a surprise statistic for many who, like Gordon Monson and other talking heads in the hard-hitting SLC sports talk radio market, predicted moral victories would be an area of weakness for this year's Utah team. But it really shouldn't have been surprising considering Utah's proud history that includes two-straight moral victories in the Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of them all you know. Going behind the numbers really shows the strength of this Utah team's potential for even more moral victories. Utah forced three of those four teams to score above their season averages and, even though moral victories came with relative ease against the Arizona schools, Utah went right down to the wire against Houston where its moral victory wasn't secured until the very last play of the game. Moral victories aren't just given to you, you have to earn them through blood, sweat, and tears on the gridiron.

I guess my bigger point is that it takes a big program to go for moral victories over the much more flashy actual victories that BYU has been getting this year. It seems like it was only last season that BYU had a five-game moral victory streak of its own in the B12, which was necessary to duck just below bowl eligibility so we could graciously allow another B12 team to take the last bowl invitation for the conference. This year it's almost like we are incapable of achieving moral victories and we don't seem to care whose post season invitation we take. So I think we have a lot to learn from Utah and they deserve our respect and, dare I say, even our admiration. My only hope is that we don't learn those lessons too soon as I'd hate for us to stand in the way of Utah getting a fifth moral victory in a row when we face off in two weeks.