We’ve had some close games this bowl sea­son and we’ve had some shootouts, but the Sun Bowl between Geor­gia Tech and Utah gave us our first over­time game of the postseason.

The Utes needed 14 unan­swered fourth quar­ter points to tie the game at 24 at the end of reg­u­la­tion – the final 7 of which came in the form of a 28-yard touch­down toss from quar­ter­back Jon Hays to DeVonte Christo­pher. Utah then kept Geor­gia Tech’s triple option offense, which had piled over 300 rush­ing yards on the Utes’ D, to a field goal before scor­ing one final touch­down – an eight yard rush from John White IV – to win by a final score fo 30–27.

Hays took over the quar­ter­back posi­tion ear­lier this year with the season-ending shoul­der injury to starter Jor­dan Wynn, and had a nice game today, throw­ing for 193 yards and three touchdowns.

The injury to Wynn was part of a tough sea­son for Utah in their first year in the Pac-12. Accus­tomed to recent suc­cess and com­pet­ing for BCS bowls, the Utes man­aged only seven reg­u­lar sea­son vic­to­ries and fin­ished in the mid­dle of a bad Pac-12 South division.

With three new coaches in the Pac-12 South next year (Ari­zona, Ari­zona State and UCLA) the Utes could be a sleeper – yes, I thought they were in that posi­tion this year – to win that division.

Easy, USC fans. No one in their right mind is pick­ing the Utes over the Tro­jans. But today’s win gives Kyle Whit­ting­ham‘s team some pos­i­tive momen­tum head­ing into 2012.

Geor­gia Tech started out the sea­son hot at 6–0, but sput­tered to win only two games since. They fin­ish the sea­son at 8–5.