If the committee is positioning itself to put Oklahoma above Utah, why wouldn’t they just go ahead and do it? Oklahoma is 10-1 with a better strength of schedule than Utah, and that is all the justification they would need.
I believe they didn’t do it because they still believe in Utah, and are giving us the benefit of the doubt. The committee chair acknowledged that in the loss to USC, we were without Zack Moss. This proves they think highly of Utah and thinks we probably would have won that game with Moss.