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I thought I would be mature enough to avoid bringing this up, but I constantly surprise myself.
Which win is bigger?
My first inclination would be to vote for the Sugar Bowl win. Season-ending wins should have a bit more weight than season-opening wins, since they've had twelve games to filter out the pretenders. Then again, a game to open the season features two teams with everything on the line. Who's to say Alabama doesn't play a little better if all of the marbles were on the table and there was still a chance to hoist the crystal trophy?
The ability to underestimate an opponent is not absent on either side, but you can't be thinking about next week's opponent when this week's opponent is your last of the year. Then there's the national stage. A prestigious bowl game on ABC vs. a season-opening "Classic" on ESPN. Point to the Sugar Bowl.
Then there's the quality of the opponent. Oklahoma was ranked higher and featured a Heisman trophy winner. Bama had been the number one team in the land for most of the season before dropping against the eventual champs. Critics will rightly look in the coming weeks to see how Oklahoma fares to evaluate how good they really were, but it isn't entirely fair to judge the strength of a blow by how quickly an opponent recovers from it.
All things said, the two are different enough that it's fair just to call them both big wins and not claim one greater than the other. In the end, the magnitude of the respective victories will be determined by their end results, and we've yet to see the full breadth of the impact of either win. If BYU ends up making noise this year, that adds weight to their win. Then again, some of that weight probably belongs to the Sugar Bowl win. Truth be told, BYU does owe Utah. The Sugar Bowl victory set BYU up to make some noise. Then again, Utah is no less indebted to the teams that set the national stage for their run. That includes the Tulane and Marshall teams of 98 and 99, as well as, yes, the BYU teams of 1984, 1996, and 2001, each of which forced voters and corporate managers alike to define the system and the parameters by which a team like Utah could make their runs.
(By the way, isn't it amazing how fickle a thing perception is? At the beginning of 2008, BYU was clearly the best non-BCS team out there. By the end of the season, it was obviously Utah. One game into the 2009 season, BYU is in the discussion for not just a BCS game, but the TITLE game. And all it will take for that talk to vaporize with two snickers and a chuckle is one letdown against one of a number of opponents more than capable of handing BYU a loss. Gotta love media.)
In the end, though, the most important factor in the discussion is this: I am a BYU fan, and therefore unable to objectively consider the issue without bias. Due to this factor above all others, I hereby declare the victory over Oklahoma to be the biggest win in MWC history. Huzzah.
Which win is bigger?
My first inclination would be to vote for the Sugar Bowl win. Season-ending wins should have a bit more weight than season-opening wins, since they've had twelve games to filter out the pretenders. Then again, a game to open the season features two teams with everything on the line. Who's to say Alabama doesn't play a little better if all of the marbles were on the table and there was still a chance to hoist the crystal trophy?
The ability to underestimate an opponent is not absent on either side, but you can't be thinking about next week's opponent when this week's opponent is your last of the year. Then there's the national stage. A prestigious bowl game on ABC vs. a season-opening "Classic" on ESPN. Point to the Sugar Bowl.
Then there's the quality of the opponent. Oklahoma was ranked higher and featured a Heisman trophy winner. Bama had been the number one team in the land for most of the season before dropping against the eventual champs. Critics will rightly look in the coming weeks to see how Oklahoma fares to evaluate how good they really were, but it isn't entirely fair to judge the strength of a blow by how quickly an opponent recovers from it.
All things said, the two are different enough that it's fair just to call them both big wins and not claim one greater than the other. In the end, the magnitude of the respective victories will be determined by their end results, and we've yet to see the full breadth of the impact of either win. If BYU ends up making noise this year, that adds weight to their win. Then again, some of that weight probably belongs to the Sugar Bowl win. Truth be told, BYU does owe Utah. The Sugar Bowl victory set BYU up to make some noise. Then again, Utah is no less indebted to the teams that set the national stage for their run. That includes the Tulane and Marshall teams of 98 and 99, as well as, yes, the BYU teams of 1984, 1996, and 2001, each of which forced voters and corporate managers alike to define the system and the parameters by which a team like Utah could make their runs.
(By the way, isn't it amazing how fickle a thing perception is? At the beginning of 2008, BYU was clearly the best non-BCS team out there. By the end of the season, it was obviously Utah. One game into the 2009 season, BYU is in the discussion for not just a BCS game, but the TITLE game. And all it will take for that talk to vaporize with two snickers and a chuckle is one letdown against one of a number of opponents more than capable of handing BYU a loss. Gotta love media.)
In the end, though, the most important factor in the discussion is this: I am a BYU fan, and therefore unable to objectively consider the issue without bias. Due to this factor above all others, I hereby declare the victory over Oklahoma to be the biggest win in MWC history. Huzzah.
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