Utah Utes Undefeated After Sugar Bowl Win! What is a Ute Anyway?

Salt Lake City and all of Utah congratulates the hometown University of Utah Utes, winners of the 2009 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, making the Utes the only undefeated team for the 2008 college football season! Utah Utes Sugar Bowl Championship gear is already available at the University of Utah Athletics Official Online Store!

The Utes came to the 2009 Sugar Bowl fired up and ready to defend their honor after Alabama Coach Nick Saban said the Crimson Tide was the only undefeated team from a real BCS conference. Saban later apologized for offending the Utah Utes, but only after the Utes crushed the Crimson Tide in the 31-17 win at the 2009 Sugar Bowl. In a statement reported by The El Paso Times, Saban said, "I apologize if anybody was offended by that. We had a tremendous amount of respect for Utah," Saban said. "I certainly misstated that. ... So if that's what gave them all their intensity, then I guess I'm responsible for the way they played and I'm responsible for the way we played."

Barry Switzer might have to eat his pregame words and be the first to buy a Utah Utes championship shirt and cap in support of the Utes win and as a symbolic apology. Switzer said there is no way the Utah Utes can play with Alabama. Switzer also said no players from the Utah Utes team would ever be recruited by Alabama. Don't worry Barry, players from an undefeated national championship team probably wouldn't leave Utah anyway.

Not only can the Utah Utes play and defeat the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Utah Utes and the Mountain West Conference deserve to be in the broken BCS conference. The Utes totally dominated the 2009 Sugar Bowl college football game taking an early lead of 21-3 in the first quarter. Alabama never gained the lead during the entire game. Utes quarterback Brian Johnson won MVP of the 2009 Sugar Bowl football game as an estimated 15,000 Utah Utes fans who traveled the trip to New Orleans cheered their championship team. Johnson led the Ute's no-huddle offense to complete 27 of 41 passes for 336 yards and three touchdowns.

Many of the local Salt Lake City pregame radio comments addressed a popular national caller question: What is a Ute anyway? The Utes are an Indian tribe that oversees 1.3 million of the 4.5 million acres on the second largest Indian Reservation in the United States, The Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The Ute Indian Tribe has 3,157 members of which half live on the Northern Utah Reservation about 150 miles east of Salt Lake City in a region known as the Uintah Basin. Oil and natural gas mining, cattle, and water systems sustaining several communities are among the Ute Indian Tribe's biggest business.

The Ute Indian Tribe conducts several traditional cultural events throughout the year, including the Bear Dance in spring and the Sundance in July and August. The Ute Indian Tribe's Sundance cultural event was not however, what inspired the name for avid Native American supporter Robert Redford's 5,000-acre Utah Sundance resort and filmmaker institute. The name was inspired from Redford's breakthrough role as the Sundance Kid in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In real life, Harry A. Longabaugh got caught and went to jail for stealing a horse in Sundance, Wyoming and afterwards became known as The Sundance Kid. Nevertheless, it seems that the name Sundance fits the Utah Uintah Basin region in both a historic and Native American cultural honor.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03sugar.html?ref=ncaafootball

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBC_T25_SUGAR_BOWL?SITE=TXELP&SECTION=SPORTS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-01-02-15-27-15

http://utahutes.cstv.com/

http://store.cstv.com/marketplace/store.cfm?dept_id=16336&store_id=31&partner_id=15511&partner_id=15512

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705274921,00.html

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/americanwest/a/sundance_kid.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/05/sunday/main2153623.shtml

http://www.uteindian.com/