Utes

The University of Utah put a team on the field in Salt Lake City in 1892, sat out the following season, and came back in 1894. For decades that history ran through conference realignments rather than a settled identity: the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in the 1920s and '30s, then stretches in the Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West before the move to the Pac-12 in 2011 and, more recently, the Big 12 in 2024.

The name comes from the Ute tribe, and the red and white colours have carried through the changes in scenery, including the home ground itself: built in 1927 as Ute Stadium, it became Rice Stadium in 1972 and, after a rebuild, Rice–Eccles Stadium in 1998, now seating 51,444 following a 2021 renovation.

No NCAA national championship sits in the record books, but 2008 came close in spirit — a 13–0 season capped by a Sugar Bowl win that the programme counts as a title of its own. Kyle Whittingham presided over the bulk of the modern era, taking charge in 2005 and reaching 177 wins by 2025, a spell that included back-to-back Pac-12 Championship Game victories in 2021 and 2022. Alex Smith went from Utah quarterback to the first overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft.

Bowl games have been the more reliable measure of success: the Utes have won 28 of them, from the 1939 Sun Bowl through to the 2025 Las Vegas Bowl.