After two seasons at Bowling Green, he took the job at Utah in 2003. In his first year there, Meyer was named the Mountain West Conference's Coach of the Year with a 10–2 record, the best ever for a coach's first season at Utah. He also earned honors as "The Sporting News" National Coach of the Year, the first Utes coach to do so. They also won the program's first outright conference championship since the 1957 team won the Skyline Conference title.