A top US college football coach with a successful history of recruiting Australian punters says taking his team to Australia for a game does not make "a lot of sense".
University of Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said his Utes had been approached, but declined , an invitation to play in Australia.
Utah's Pac-12 rival Stanford crushed Rice 62-7 in the US college season opener in front of 33,000 fans at Sydney's Allianz Stadium on Sunday.
It is the second year the Sydney Cup has been staged, but Whittingham, whose gambles on Australian punters Tom Hackett and Mitch Wishnowsky in recent years have proved to be a masterstroke, said flying his team to Sydney was not "in the best interests of our players".
"We were invited to that, and we didn't think that made a lot of sense for us," Whittingham told the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper.
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"You know, it's got to be good for recruiting or really good for your players.
"We weighed that out and mulled it over for a long time, and decided that for us it wasn't what we wanted to do."
Whittingham cited the travel and logistics involved in the Sydney Cup.
Stanford will receive a bye this weekend and another in October.
Hackett won two Ray Guy Awards for the best punter in US college football in 2014 and 2015 and Wishnowsky claimed it last season.
