I am so excited that the Utes have finally gotten into the Pac-10 (now Pac-12). In my mind, the addition of Colorado and Utah made a lot more sense in terms of what the Pac-10 stands for than schools like Texas. Would it have been nice to have BYU included? Yes, at least for Utah to continue its rivalry, and BYU probably travels with more fans than Utah, but the reality is that only Utah really fits in with the Pac-10 in terms of academics and Olympic sports teams and being a public university. (Okay, Stanford is private, but not a religious affiliated private school.)
In the absence of a play-off system in football (and the speculations of the last few weeks have highlighted the absolute need for a play-off) the only chance that a team like Utah has to play for the national championship is to be in an automatic qualifying conference. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is being invited to the BCS bowl.
So now the next obvious move for Utah is to fire its basketball coach and to get somebody respectable, so that we can once again be perennial sweet 16 or better. Playing in the Pac-12 should help recruiting, but only with a better coach. Some sports like swimming and baseball will probably improve simply by virtue of the new recruiting pool and exposure. Gymnastics will continue to be the juggernaut it has always been, but again, may get more exposure.
