Who is Utah Football’s rival and why?

I agree from a sense that I view USC as our biggest test each year, and it’s the game to which I most look forward.  Last year’s loss was one of the most brutal of my fandom (national TV, had a real chance at the end…etc.).  

My only question:  Does USC view us as their rival?

Are they really our rival if they don’t view us as their rival, though? 

BYU is still our biggest rival. Has the rivalry changed? Sure. In my experience the fan board diehards tend to be the only ones with your viewpoint. Everyone else loves the Holy War and looks forward to it every year.

Bring on the downvotes for spitting the truth.

USC is the biggest roadblock. But BYU is the rival. That’ll change, but it’ll take time. Rivalries require decades worth of meaningful games to become a rivalry.

BYU-p, rivalries take a long time to build and there has to be emotion involved in it.  USC we have had some good games with, but I would hardly call them a rivalry up to this point.  BYU hates us and we hate them, we may form some rivalries over time in the PAC, but they aren’t there yet.

Agree in my eyes it is USC. Yet they don’t view us that way. It is by this logic TDS views us as their rival. 

I think many fans view tds as a rival. Besides a few recruits and a meaningless OOC game they don’t compete with Utah for anything anymore.  Reality is majority of fans are excited about the USC and Washington games this year. If Utah wins the south before the Tds game it will further the downward trend of fans realizing the meaningless of playing TDS. We will realize the risk of putting that game to end the year risking injury after they play for a P12 title a week later. At least that is my hope. 

Still some fans will view it is as our rivalry because they like to bag on Mormons. 

It is important for conference championship purposes that we beat our biggest divisional threat each year, and yes, that is usually USC.  Southern CA is also a gold mine for recruiting, which adds an additional incentive to beat USC as much as possible.

That said, I think your rival is the team you can’t stand losing to.  The team who’s fan base you absolutely can’t stand to see celebrating at your expense.  The team you can’t root for no matter what.  And that, for us, is still BYU.

Also, as a native of LA, I can assure you that USC’s rival is UCLA.  They see us and a few other teams as an annual battle and important game, but they hate the Bruins.

I’m actively embracing Colorado as our rival. I know that it is not there yet, but it has the most long-term potential and there are enough similarities between the schools and states that there are petty things for us to bash about.

BYU is right now our main rival and will be for a while, but last year’s win was the first time I thought, “meh, maybe we don’t need to play BYU forever.” (though for the record, I do fully support them being on our schedule every year for the foreseeable future…until the gap is just too wide).

No way USC is our rival. Rivalry’s aren’t rivalries when its one sided. If you polled the whole pac-12 south, they would all say USC is in their top-2 rivals. I’d argue that Arizona is becoming a solid rival as we struggle with them for some reason (especially in Tucson) and in basketball we are slowly becoming a tier-2 team in the conference and thus close to competing with them in BBall.

Agreed. It’s The University of Spoiled Children. They are always the south opponent that I have circled on the calendar. Plus beating them looks really good for recruiting and national exposure. 

“To me USC is our rival now. They are the ones, like byu was in the Wac and Mt West days, that stand in the way of us winning our conference every season.” Did you even think about that statement before typing it? Sure USC is standing in our way but you make it sound as if they are the only one as was often the case with byu and the mountain west. 

A little advice for everyone, stop bringing byu into any conversation involving the PAC12. Even situations like this one that attempt to relate to byu will have no comparison to PAC12 dynamics. It’s a whole different world that byu just doesn’t belong in. I’m not saying that out of hate for byu, it’s just reality. We’ve had 7 years to figure out the “PAC12 world” it’s time for everybody to catch up.

Colorado is the closest thing to a rival that we have but IMO it’s not a true rivalry. The potential is there but it just isn’t quite a rivalry yet.

USC isn’t our rival, because it’s not equally reciprocated.

Colorado is our rival, but it’s a wholesome affair.

But you know which fanbase is really salty towards Utah: Arizona State. Read any r/CFB post saying something good about Utah and there will be a handful of salty ASU fans commenting. Plus their fans are easily the worst Mormon bashers in the PAC, so I think our ALUF population will find them easy to dislike.

Those damn dirty buffaloes…